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I.H.A. 

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a 852) 

"LI  E>  I^AFLY 

OF  THE 
U  N  IVERS  ITY 
Of    ILLINOIS 


JUINOIS  HISTORICAL  SURVEY 


X 


DANIEL  WEBSTER 


C.    SHERMAN,     PRIXIEB, 


PHILADELPHIA. 


DISCOURSE 


LIFE  AND  CHARACTER 


DANIEL  WEBSTER. 


H.  A.   BOARDMAN,  D.D. 


PHILADELPHIA: 

JOSEPH    M.     WILSON. 

228    CHESTNUT    STREET. 

18  52. 


C.     S  HER  MAX,     PRINTER, 

19  St.  James  Street. 


wJ 


CORRESPONDENCE. 


Philadelphia,  November  26,  1852. 

To  the  Reverend  Henry  A.  Boardman,  D.D. 

Reverend  and  dear  Sir  : — 

We  beg  leave  most  respectfully  to  ask  the  favour  of  you  to  fur- 
nish for  publication  a  copy  of  your  discourse,  delivered  on  Monday 
evening  last,  upon  the  life  and  character  of  Daniel  Webster.  We 
think  it  important  that  this  graphic  and  eloquent  tribute  to  the 
memory  of  the  departed  Statesman  should  be  preserved  in  an  en- 
during form.  It  may  have  a  salutary  influence  upon  many  aspirants 
for  political  distinction,  to  know  that  devoted  and  patriotic  services 
are  appreciated,  after  the  actors  have  passed  away ;  and  it  may 
comfort  and  strengthen  the  faith  of  the  humble  Christian,  when  he 
sees  the  efficacy  of  his  holy  religion  so  triumphantly  illustrated  in 
the  trying  hour  of  death. 

With  sentiments  of  high  respect  and  regard, 

We  are  your  friends  and  fellow-citizens, 


R.  C.  Grier. 
Jno.  K.  Kane. 
Geo.  Sharswood. 
Oswald  Thompson. 
J.  K.  Mitchell,  M.D. 
Evans  Rogers. 
Arthur  G.  Coffin. 
John  S.  Riddle. 
Isaac  Hazlehurst. 


Charles  Gilpin. 
John  A.  Brown. 
James  Dundas. 
Charles  Macalester. 
Hugh  L.  Hodge,  M.D. 
S.  F.  Smith. 
Nathaniel  Chauncey. 
Henry  D.  Gilpin. 
Frederick  Brown. 


Philadelphia,  November  29,  1852. 
Gentlemen  : — 

I  thank  you  sincerely  for  your  very  kind  note,  requesting  for 

publication  a  copy  of  my  discourse  on   the  life  and  character  of 

Daniel  Webster,  and  have  pleasure  in  placing  the  manuscript  at 

your  disposal. 

I  remain,  Gentlemen, 

With  great  respect, 

Your  friend  and  servant, 

H.   A.   BOARDMAN. 
To  the  Hon.  Hubert  C.  Grier, 
Hon.  Charles  Gilpin, 
Hon.  John  K.  Kane. 
Hon.  George  Siiarswood, 
Hon.  Oswald  Thompson, 
John  A.  Brown,  Esq., 
And  others. 


DISCOURSE. 


I  cannot  bring  myself  to  believe  that  the  theme 
which  is  now  engrossing  all  minds,  should  be  excluded 
from  the  pulpit.  We  are  a  smitten  nation.  The 
symbols  of  mourning  meet  the  eye  in  our  crowded 
cities,  in  our  tranquil  villages,  in  the  remotest  hamlets 
of  the  mountains.  "  A  great  man  has  fallen  in  Israel !" 
God  has  taken  from  us  "  the  honourable  man,  and  the 
counsellor,  and  the  eloquent  orator."  If  such  a  man  is 
one  of  the  choicest  earthly  gifts  heaven  can  bestow 
upon  a  people,  his  removal  may  well  be  regarded  as 
one  of  their  greatest  bereavements.  We  are  admo- 
nished that  the  fall  of  a  sparrow  has  its  lesson  of  in- 
struction for  us.  How  inexcusable  would  it  be,  should 
we  treat  an  event  like  this  with  indifference. 

Yet  while  I  recognise  the  duty  upon  which  I  am 
entering,  I  shrink  from  it.  I  have  no  hope  of  convey- 
ing to  your  minds  my  own  sense  of  the  magnitude  of 
our  loss.  Still  less  can  I  expect  to  elude  the  strictures 
of  those  who  entertain  what  may,  perhaps,  be  styled 
the  popular  view  of  the  legitimate  sphere  of  the  pulpit. 
But  I  am  pressed  with  the  feeling  that  I  must,  as  a 
Pastor,  in  some  way  improve  this  dispensation  :  that 


without  attempting  a  formal  eulogy  on  Mr.  Webster, 
which  would  be  in  the  highest  degree  presumptuous, 
I  must  here  record  my  sense  of  the  invaluable  services 
he  has  rendered  to  our  common  country  and  our 
common  Christianity,  and  so  endeavour  to  turn  the 
emotions  of  sorrow  which  fill  our  hearts,  to  some  use- 
ful account.  If  I  can  do  nothing  more,  I  must  be  al- 
lowed to  cast  a  single  flower,  however  transitory,  upon 
his  grave. 

Many  eloquent  tongues  have  already  been  employed 
in  celebrating  Mr.  Webster's  character  and  achieve- 
ments. The  most  distinguished  men  of  the  leading 
political  parties  have  vied  with  each  other  in  doing 
homage  to  his  intellectual  greatness,  his  patriotism, 
and  his  private  virtues.  In  respect  to  the  first  of  these 
characteristics,  he  has  long  been  without  a  rival,  the 
acknowledged  head  and  crown  of  this  nation.  A  mind 
like  his  is  a  wonderful  creation — adapted  beyond  the 
sublimest  exertions  of  the  Divine  power  and  wisdom 
in  the  physical  world,  to  inspire  reverential  and  ador- 
ing views  of  the  moral  perfections  of  the  Deity.  Its 
essential  elements  were  comprehension,  strength,  sa- 
gacity, and  symmetry.  Colossal  in  its  proportions,  it 
was  nevertheless  so  well  poised  that  it  awakened  ad- 
miration no  less  by  the  harmony  of  its  movements 
than  by  the  grandeur  of  its  several  parts.  The  origi- 
nal structure  of  his  intellect  conspired  with  the  whole 
current  of  his  training,  to  define  the  mission  on  which 
Providence  had  sent  him  into  the  world.  No  other 
revelation  was  needed  to  show  that  the  science  of  go- 


vernment  was  to  be  the  proper  study  of  his  life,  and 
that  he  was  ultimately,  should  he  be  spared,  to  take 
his  place  among  that  honourable  assemblage — compri- 
sing, at  the  end  of  six  thousand  years,  but  a  very  small 
number  of  names — whom  the  world  reveres  as  Philo- 
sophic Statesmen.  If  we  except  the  great  New  Eng- 
land Metaphysician  and  Divine  of  the  last  century, 
Jonathan  Edwards,  our  own  country  has  produced  but 
one  mind  comparable,  in  the  qualities  just  noted,  to 
his  own ;  and  that,  by  an  inscrutable  Providence,  was 
doomed  to  a  violent  extinction  just  when  it  had 
reached  the  full  maturity  of  its  powers.  It  is  the  re- 
cord of  history,  that  Alexander  Hamilton*  was  "  num- 
bered among  statesmen  at  an  age  when  in  others  the 
rudiments  of  character  are  scarcely  visible ;"  and  that 
"  America  saw  with  astonishment  a  lad  of  seventeen 
in  the  rank  of  her  advocates,  at  a  time  when  her  ad- 
vocates were  patriots  and  sages."  Mr.  Webster  him- 
self once  beautifully  said  of  him,  "  He  smote  the  rock 
of  the  national  resources,  and  abundant  streams  of  re- 
venue gushed  forth.  He  touched  the  dead  corpse  of 
the  public  credit,  and  it  sprung  upon  its  feet.  The 
fabled  birth  of  Minerva  from  the  brain  of  Jove,  was 
hardly  more  sudden  or  more  perfect  than  the  financial 
system  of  the  United  States  burst  from  the  conceptions 
of  Alexander  Hamilton."  If  the  genius  of  Webster 
was  not  signalized  by  so  precocious  a  development,  it 
was  marked  by  no  less  vigour  and  versatility,  and  re- 

*  We  may  fairly  claim   Hamilton  as  an  American,  although  he 
was  a  native  of  the  small  island  of  Nevis,  in  the  West  Indies. 


sembled  it  in  the  rare  and  happy  union  of  a  capacity  for 
the  largest  generalization,  with  the  utmost  patience 
and  penetration  in  the  analysis  of  details.  Like  Ham- 
ilton, too,  he  was  great  in  the  Senate  and  at  the  Bar ; 
his  equal  as  a  statesman,  certainly  not  his  inferior  as 
an  advocate.  It  has  fallen  to  the  lot  of  but  a  very  few 
men  in  either  hemisphere  to  achieve  an  equal  dis- 
tinction in  these  two  fields  at  the  same  time.  Mr. 
Pitt  and  his  illustrious  antagonist,  Fox,  were  pre-emi- 
nent as  parliamentary  debaters ;  but  politics  left  them 
neither  time  nor  inclination  for  legal  practice.  Fox, 
however,  is  said  to  have  excited  the  astonishment  and 
admiration  of  the  judges  in  arguing  questions  of  law 
on  the  trial  of  Warren  Hastings.  Erskine,  the  most 
eloquent  and  successful  barrister  known  to  the  British 
Bar,  had  but  a  second  or  third  rate  rank  in  the  House 
of  Commons.  But  of  Webster  it  was  well  said  by  one 
of  the  leading  members  of  our  Bar,  at  the  late  town- 
meeting,  "  while  the  deep  tones  and  the  rich  volumes 
of  his  voice  were  still  almost  echoing  in  the  councils 
of  the  nation,  they  were  again  heard  in  forensic  splen- 
dour in  the  highest  judicial  courts  of  the  nation."* 

It  is  a  remarkable  and  striking  fact,  that  the  supe- 
riority here  claimed  for  him  should  have  been  conceded 
by  all  his  contemporaries.  Among  the  resolutions 
adopted  by  the  New  York  Bar,  on  the  occasion  of  his 
death,  was  the  following : 

"  Resolved,  That  in  the  large  capacities  and  varied 
powers  of  his  intellect,  in  the  culture  and  discipline  of 

*  Josiah  Randall,  Esq. 


these  powers  in  the  highest  sphere  of  human  action 
and  influence,  in  the  fortune  of  great  opportunities  and 
the  success  of  great  achievements,  Daniel  Webster 
stands  first  among  the  men  of  his  day  and  generation, 
and  his  name  and  his  fame  will  be  a  treasured  posses- 
sion to  his  country  for  ever." 

This  is  not  an  empty  posthumous  compliment.  It 
was  the  feeling,  the  universal  feeling,  during  his  life. 
In  whatsoever  part  of  the  Republic,  on  whatever  thea- 
tre, he  was  "  primus  inter  pares,"  the  acknowledged 
chief.  On  the  floor  of  the  Senate,  before  the  tribunals 
of  justice,  at  public  festivals  or  political  convocations, 

"  He  above  the  rest, 
In  shape  and  gesture  proudly  eminent, 
Stood  like  a  tower." 

No  one  divided  the  primacy  with  him.  No  one 
contested  it.  No  one  seemed  even  to  envy  it.  His 
very  presence  inspired  respect.  "  It  was  enough  (to 
borrow  the  words  of  an  accomplished  English  noble- 
man'" who  visited  our  country  two  years  ago)  to  look 
on  his  jutting  dark  brow  and  cavernous  eyes,  and 
massive  forehead,  to  be  assured  that  they  were  the 
abode  of  as  much,  if  not  more,  intellectual  power  than 
any  head  you  perhaps  ever  remarked."  And  when 
he  spoke,  the  ample  promise  of  his  majestic  appear- 
ance was  redeemed.  You  found  yourself  listening  to 
a  consummate  orator.     Scorning  the  trickery  of  mere 

*  The  Earl  of  Carlisle. 


10 

declamation,  he  gave  himself  to  the  question  in  hand 
with  a  dignity  and  earnestness  of  manner,  an  afflu- 
ence and  precision  of  language,  a  compactness  and 
cogency  of  reasoning,  and  a  fertility  of  illustration, 
which  never  failed  to  rivet  the  attention,  rarely  to 
carry  conviction  to  the  heart.  A  master  of  the  Eng- 
lish tongue,  the  simplicity  of  his  diction  and  the 
purity  of  his  style,  made  him  intelligible  to  persons  of 
every  class.  Nor  was  it  possible  to  listen  to  him 
without  being  instructed.  Even  in  his  familiar  con- 
versation you  were  made  to  feel  that  his  mind  re- 
volved in  a  sphere  above  that  occupied  by  ordinary 
men.  And  whatever  the  subject  on  which  he  spoke, 
you  were  certain  to  hear  something  worth  carrying 
away. 

It  is  only  an  expansion  of  the  topic  we  have  been 
dwelling  upon,  to  observe  that  Mr.  Webster  could 
speak  to  the  country  with  an  authority  which  be- 
longed to  none  of  his  eminent  associates.  This  was 
not  the  result  of  any  assumed  superiority.  It  was 
not  derived  from  official  station,  for  it  was  equally 
marked  during  the  intervals  of  his  retirement,  as 
when  he  was  in  the  Senate  or  the  Cabinet,  as  decisive 
at  Marshfield  as  at  Washington.  It  was  the  spontane- 
ous tribute  of  his  fellow-citizens  of  all  parties  to  his 
great  abilities,  his  wisdom,  and  his  known  devotion 
to  the  Union.  Whenever  a  cloud  came  down  upon 
our  foreign  relations,  or  a  threatening  crisis  approached 
in  our  domestic  affairs,  the  nation  turned,  as  by  a  sort 
of  common  instinct,  to  Mr.  Webster.    There  was  no  man 


11 

whose  opinions  at  such  junctures  there  was  so  great 
a  desire  to  learn  ;  none  whose  utterances  produced  so 
decisive  an  effect  upon  the  finance  and  commerce  of 
the  country.  A  few  words  from  him,  whether  of 
distrust  or  of  hopefulness,  would  tell  upon  every  share 
of  stock  in  Wall  Street,  upon  every  cargo  of  flour  at 
Detroit,  and  every  shipload  of  cotton  at  New  Orleans. 
The  country  knew  that  he  was,  beyond  any  other 
man,  conversant  with  all  its  interests  and  relations ; 
that  he  never  spoke  what  he  did  not  fully  believe ; 
and  that  his  words  were  words  of  careful  deliberation. 
They  relied  upon  his  truthfulness,  and  this,  combined 
with  his  extraordinary  abilities,  was  a  tower  of  strength 
to  him.  There  are  able  and  truthful  men  who  sur- 
vive him ;  but  it  is  no  disparagement  to  them  to  say, 
that  there  is  no  man  living  who  can  stand  up  and 
speak  to  the  American  people  as  Daniel  Webster 
could,  or  whose  opinions  will  be  sought  for  in  great 
emergencies,  as  his  were. 

There  was  a  reason  for  the  confidence  which  the 
country  at  large  reposed  in  him,  paramount  even  to 
the  admiration  in  which  all  classes  held  his  trans- 
cendent abilities.  Mr.  Webster  belonged  to  the  whole 
country.  He  was  no  local  politician.  He  was  no 
mere  party  man.  New  Hampshire  might  boast  of  the 
small,  one-story  farm-house  in  which  he  was  born. 
Massachusetts  might  glory  in  having  him  as  one  of 
her  adopted  sons.  But  he  was  no  man  of  Massachu- 
setts— no  man  of  New  Hampshire, — he  was  an  Ame- 
rican.    He  had  of  course  his  geographical  ties  and 


12 

associations ;  but  Warwickshire  might  as  well  attempt 
to  monopolise  William  Shakspeare,  or  Lincolnshire 
Sir  Isaac  Newton,  as  for  any  one  of  our  commonwealths 
to  challenge  for  itself  the  name  and  fame  of  Daniel 
Webster.  His  true  position  was  that  assigned  him 
in  a  sentiment  offered  at  a  public  dinner  some  eighteen 
months  ago  :  "  The  Constitution,  and  its  greatest  Ex- 
pounder— the  Union,  and  its  ablest  Defender."  With 
a  single  exception,  these  are  the  most  honourable 
titles  known  to  American  history ;  and  by  so  indisso- 
luble a  tie  has  the  gratitude  of  his  counti^men  bound 
them  to  his  name,  that  they  will  go  down  to  posterity 
with  as  definitive  an  application  as  that  which  attaches 
to  the  "  Father  of  his  Country."  It  is  not  intended 
by  this  language  that  Mr.  Webster  was  not  allied  to  a 
part)-,  nor  that  he  did  not  in  his  place  advocate  party 
measures.  But  he  was  not,  and,  by  the  necessity  of 
his  nature,  he  could  not  be  a  strict  party  man.  Like 
Burke,  whom  he  resembled  in  several  particulars  (his 
devotion  to  agriculture  among  the  rest),  he  was  a 
statesman  as  distinguished  from  a  politician.  And 
this,  if  traced  to  its  results,  may  help  to  explain  why, 
like  Burke,  also,  he  was  never  (if  ice  are  to  believe 
everytliing  we  hear)  a  popular  favourite.  If  this  was 
a  fact,  it  was  because  he  wras  too  great  to  be  popu- 
lar. He  would  not  stoop  to  pamper  the  vanity  and 
inflame  the  prejudices  of  the  people.  He  despised 
the  intrigue  and  cajolery  by  which  small  men  and 
bad  men  so  often  rise  to  power.  He  was  not  a  man 
to  be  bought  and  sold  at  the  shambles.     If  the  mea- 


13 

sures  of  an  administration  to  which  he  was  generally 
opposed  met  his  approval,  he  had  the  rare  indepen- 
dence and  magnanimity  to  support  them  ;  and  some  of 
his  ablest  speeches  were  made  on  occasions  of  this 
kind.  The  triumph  of  party  was  not  the  end  he 
lived  for.  Government  was  with  him  not  a  paltry 
game  of  "  Who  wins  and  who  loses"  but  a  divine  in- 
stitution, ordained  for  the  most  beneficent  objects,  and 
essentially  connected  with  the  highest  happiness  of 
individuals,  and  the  substantial  improvement  of  states. 
In  his  view,  the  problems  involved  in  administration 
are  among  the  most  profound,  as  its  functions  are 
among  the  most  important,  which  can  engage  the 
attention  of  the  human  intellect.  And  it  is  easy  to 
imagine  the  secret  loathing  with  which  he  must  have 
seen  these  momentous  interests  made,  as  they  con- 
stantly are,  the  sport  of  the  vilest  passions,  and  de- 
graded to  be  the  very  footballs  of  rival  demagogues. 

The  special  subject  to  which  he  applied  his  powers, 
was  the  Constitution  of  his  country.  You  shall  have 
his  own  statement  on  this  point : 

"  Gentlemen,  to  be  serious,  my  life  has  been  a  life 
of  severe  labour  in  my  profession,  and  all  the  portion 
I  could  spare  of  that  labour,  from  the  support  of  my 
family  and  myself,  has  been  devoted  to  the  considera- 
tion of  subjects  connected  with  the  general  history  of 
the  country — the  Constitution  of  the  country — the 
confederation  out  of  which  the  Constitution  arose — 
all  the  history  of  all  the  Congresses  which  have 
assembled  before  and   since   the   formation   of  that 


14 

Constitution — and,  in  short,  if  I  have  learned  any- 
thing, or  know  anything — and  I  agree  it  is  very 
little — what  I  do  know  and  what  I  do  understand,  so 
far  as  I  understand  anything,  is  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States,  the  history  of  its  formation,  and 
the  history  of  its  administration  under  General  Wash- 
ington, and  from  that  time  down  to  this."* 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  of  Mr.  Webster,  that  he 
surpassed  all  the  men  of  his  generation  in  his  minute 
familiarity  with  everything  pertaining  to  the  origin 
and  working  of  our  republican  charters,  and  in  the 
profound  and  varied  knowledge,  the  masculine  logic, 
and  the  lofty  eloquence  he  brought  to  the  exposition 
and  establishment  of  them.  "  The  key  to  his  whole 
political  course  is  the  belief  that  when  the  Union  is 
dissolved,  the  internal  peace,  the  vigorous  growth, 
and  the  prosperity  of  the  States,  and  the  welfare  of 
their  inhabitants,  are  blighted  for  ever;  and  that, 
while  the  Union  endures,  all  else  of  trial  and  calamity 
which  can  befall  a  nation  may  be  remedied  or  borne."f 
His  feeling  on  this  subject  was  so  much  like  that  of 
the  immortal  statesman  with  whom  he  has  already 
been  compared,  that  with  two  or  three  slight  altera- 
tions, a  passage  applied  by  his  eloquent  eulogist  to 
Hamilton,  might  be  readily  taken  as  designed  for 
Webster. 

"  He  reserved  himself  for  crises  which  he  feared  are 
approaching ;  such  crises,  especially,  as  may  affect  the 

*  Speech  at  Syracuse,  New  York,  May  26th,  1851. 

f  Mr.  Everett. 


15 

integrity  of  the  Union.  How  he  was  alarmed  by 
everything  which  pointed  at  its  dissolution ;  how  in- 
dignant were  his  feelings  and  language  on  that  ungra- 
cious topic;  how  stern  and  steady  his  hostility  to 
every  influence  which  only  leaned  toward  the  project, 
they  will  attest  with  whom  he  was  in  habits  of  com- 
munication. In  every  shape  it  encountered  his  repro- 
bation, as  unworthy  of  a  statesman,  as  fatal  to  Ame- 
rica, and  desirable  to  the  desperate  alone.  One  of 
his  primary  objects  was  to  consolidate  the  efforts  of 
good  men  in  retarding  a  calamity  which,  after  all, 
they  may  be  unable  to  avert ;  but  which  no  partial 
nor  temporary  policy  should  induce  them  to  accele- 
rate. To  these  sentiments  must  be  traced  his  hatred 
to  continental  factions ;  his  anxiety  for  the  federal 
constitution,  although,  in  his  judgment,  too  slight  for 
the  pressure  which  it  has  to  sustain ;  his  horror  of 
every  attempt  to  sap  its  foundation  or  loosen  its 
fabric ;  his  zeal  to  consecrate  it  in  the  affections  of  his 
fellow-citizens,  that,  if  it  fall  at  last,  they  may  be 
pure  from  the  guilt  of  its  overthrow — an  overthrow 
which  may  be  accomplished  in  an  hour,  but  of  which 
the  woes  may  be  entailed  upon  ages  to  come."* 

How  much  his  deep  solicitude  for  the  Union  gave 
tone  and  character  to  Mr.  Webster's  life  and  labours, 
must  be  known  wherever  his  name  is  mentioned. 
The  impress  of  it  is  upon  all  his  speeches — his  funeral 
eulogies — his  great  legal  arguments.     It  might  even 

*  Dr.  Mason's  Oration  before  the  Cincinnati,  in  New  York,  July 
31st,  1804. 


16 

be  detected  in  the  rich  tissue  of  his  ordinary  conver- 
sation. You  could  almost  read  it  in  his  majestic 
brow,  and  his  large  lustrous,  piercing  eye.*  Such 
had  been  the  course  of  events  that  his  very  presence 
suggested  the  idea  of  the  Union.  When  men  saw 
him,  their  first  thought  was  of  the  Constitution ;  and 
there  went  forth  from  every  breast  a  spontaneous 
tribute  of  veneration  and  gratitude  toward  the  man 
who  had  been  so  instrumental,  under  Providence,  in 
preserving  intact  the  framework  of  our  unrivalled 
government.")* 

Nor  has  the  extent  of  our  obligations  to  him  been 
overrated.  It  was  his  fortune  to  live  at  a  most  inte- 
resting and  critical  period  of  our  history.     He  coin- 

*  The  author  of  the  pamphlet  entitled,  "Personal  Memorials  of 
Daniel  Webster,"  (Lippincott,  Grambo  &  Co.,)  mentions  that  he 
once  questioned  Mr.  Webster  as  to  his  personal  appearance  when  a 
school-master  in  Maine.  His  reply  was,  "Long,  slender,  pale,  and 
all  eyes  ;  indeed,  I  went  by  the  name  of  '  All  Eyes,'  the  country 
round." 

"j"  In  one  of  his  addresses  just  quoted,  he  observed  that  it  so 
happened  that  all  his  public  services  had  been  rendered  to  the 
General  Government.  But,  correcting  the  statement,  he  mentioned 
a  single  exception.  "I  was,"  said  he,  "for  ten  days,  a  member  of 
the  Massachusetts  Legislature,  and  I  turned  my  thoughts  to  the 
search  of  some  good  object  in  which  I  could  be  useful  in  that  posi- 
tion ;  and  after  much  reflection,  I  introduced  a  bill,  which,  with  the 
general  consent  of  both  houses  of  the  Massachusetts  Legislature, 
passed  into  a  law,  and  is  now  a  law  of  the  State,  which  enacts  that 
no  man  in  the  State  shall  catch  trout  in  any  other  manner  than 
with  the  ordinary  hook  and  line.  With  that  exception,  I  never  was 
connected  for  an  hour  with  any  State  government  in  my  life." 


17 

menced  his  life  almost  simultaneously  with  our  Con- 
stitution, having  been  a  boy  of  only  five  years  old 
when  the  Convention  which  formed  it  assembled  in 
this  city.    The  difficulties  and  dangers  which  gathered 
around  the  infancy  of  the  government,  and  threatened 
its  early  subversion,  had  been  happily  surmounted 
before  he  reached  his  maturity  ;  but  questions  of  the 
gravest  import,  and  fraught  with  momentous  conse- 
quences  to   the  country,   arose   from   time   to  time 
during  the  entire  period  of  his  public  career.     These 
were  not  simply  matters  of  policy  and  expediency, 
like  the  tariff,  the  bank,  the  public  lands,  and  other 
legislative   measures,  which    he    discussed   with   his 
usual  ability ;  but  questions  underlying  all  legislation, 
and  affecting  the  fundamental  law  on  which  our  in- 
stitutions rest.     It  was  a  new  government ;  new,  not 
simply  as  a  chronological  fact,  but  in  many  of  the 
essential  principles  which  entered  into  its  structure. 
History  recorded  no  precedent  for  it.     The  world  had 
seen  nothing  like  it.     It  had  required  all  the  influence 
of  Washington  and  his  associates,  and  all  the  erudi- 
tion, acumen,  and  patriotism  of  the  authors  of  the 
'•Federalist,"    and   other   distinguished   writers    and 
orators,  to  win  the  consent  of  the  different  States  to 
a  federal  Union.     And  when  the    Union  was  once 
formed,  the  delicate  relations  of  the  general  and  the 
state  governments  became,  as  they  still  are,  a  source 
of  embarrassment  and  controversy.    It  was  a  question 
of  this  sort  on  which  Mr.  Webster  made  his  maiden 


18 


speech  before  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States* 
— the  celebrated  Dartmouth  College  case.  Of  his 
argument  on  that  occasion,  it  has  been  observed : 
"  The  logic  and  the  law  were  rendered  irresistible. 
But  as  he  advanced,  his  heart  warmed  to  the  subject 
and  the  occasion.  Thoughts  and  feelings  that  had 
grown  old  with  his  best  affections,  rose  unbidden  to 
his  lips.  He  remembered  that  the  institution  he  was 
defending  was  one  where  his  own  youth  had  been 
nurtured ;  and  the  moral  tenderness  and  beauty  this 
gave  to  the  grandeur  of  his  thoughts,  the  sort  of  reli- 
gious sensibility  it  imparted  to  his  urgent  appeals  and 
demands  for  the  stern  fulfilment  of  what  law  and 
justice  required,  wrought  up  the  whole  audience  to 
an  extraordinary  state  of  excitement.  Many  betrayed 
strong  agitation,  many  were  dissolved  in  tears.  Pro- 
minent among  them  was  that  eminent  lawyer  and 
statesman,  Robert  Goodloe  Harper,  who  came  to  him 
when  he  resumed  his  seat,  evincing  emotions  of  the 
highest  gratification.  When  he  ceased  to  speak,  there 
was  a  perceptible  interval  before  any  one  was  willing 
to  break  the  silence ;  and  when  that  vast  crowd  sepa- 
rated, not  one  person  of  the  whole  number  doubted 
that  the  man  who  had  that  day  so  moved,  astonished, 
and  controlled  them,  had  vindicated  for  himself  a 
place  at  the  side  of  the  first  jurists  of  the  country. "f 

Such  was  the  auspicious  dawn  of  his  brilliant  ca- 
reer as  an  expounder  of  the  Constitution.     In  subse- 

*  A.D.  1818,  in  his  thirty-seventh  year. 
f  Mr.  Ticknor,  quoted  by  Everett. 


19 


quent  years  still  greater  questions  gave  occasion  to  still 
greater  efforts.  Political  heresies  of  the  most  startling 
character,  such  as  no  opposer  of  the  federal  compact 
had  breathed  in  the  earlier  days  of  the  Republic,  were 
propagated  under  the  sanction  of  distinguished  names, 
and  found  able  and  eloquent  champions  within  the 
walls  of  the  Capitol.  Principles  were  propounded  re- 
specting the  sovereignty  of  the  states,  which,  if  carried 
out,  would  have  turned  the  bonds  which  hold  the  Union 
together  into  withs  of  straw,  and  left  this  glorious 
fabric  to  fall  to  pieces,  like  the  early  republics,  a  prey 
to  intestine  feuds.  The  merciful  Providence  that  had 
brought  us  through  so  many  other  perils,  did  not  aban- 
don us  in  this  hour  of  our  extremity.  A  man  was 
found  equal  to  the  crisis.  He  knew  that  it  was  a  crisis. 
He  formed  a  just  estimate  of  the  grandeur  of  the  occa- 
sion. It  was  in  his  view  an  issue  of  no  less  solemnity 
than  whether  this  august  Union  was  to  be  maintained 
and  perpetuated,  or  broken  up  into  a  group  of  petty 
rival  confederacies ;  whether  this  beautiful  land  was 
still  to  be  the  abode  of  peace  and  plenty,  intelligence 
and  piety,  with  the  freest,  the  happiest,  and  the  most 
improving  population  on  the  globe,  or  to  be  given  over 
to  the  manifold  horrors  of  a  violent  dismemberment, 
and  ultimately  to  the  yet  greater  horrors  of  a  fratrici- 
dal war ;  whether  the  oppressed  nations  were  still  to 
draw  encouragement  and  hope  from  the  spectacle  of  a 
great  people  rising  to  an  unexampled  pitch  of  prosper- 
ity and  renown,  under  the  influence  of  free  institu- 
tions, or  to  see  the  last  hope  of  constitutional  liberty 


20 

extinguished,  and  the  whole  globe  covered  again  with 
the  black  pall  of  despotism.  Such  were  the  issues  in- 
volved in  the  sublime  contest  to  which  he  was  called. 
Rarely  in  the  course  of  human  events  has  one  man 
had  so  vast  a  burden  laid  upon  him.  Never  did 
a  man  acquit  himself  in  a  great  crisis  more  tri- 
umphantly. It  is  not  my  province  to  rehearse  the 
details  of  that  day's*  achievement.  It  is  still  fresh  in 
your  memories.  The  fame  of  it  is  a  part,  and  no  tri- 
vial part  of  our  country's  glory.  While  the  Union 
lasts,  that  speech  will  continue  to  be  cited  as  one  of 
the  noblest  efforts — perhaps  the  very  noblest — of  mo- 
dern eloquence.  And  should  this  Republic  hereafter 
yield  to  the  destiny  of  all  human  organizations  and 
crumble  into  ruins,  the  oblivion  that  sweeps  away  our 
cities,  our  fortresses,  and  our  charters,  will  leave 
Webster's  reply  to  Hayne  to  be  read  and  admired 
by  distant  generations  as  a  memento  of  our  greatness, 
no  less  indestructible  than  the  monuments  which 
Greece  and  Rome  have  respectively  in  the  Philippics 
of  Demosthenes  and  the  orations  of  Cicero  against 
Cataline. 

I  have  dwelt  on  this  speech  because  of  the  pre-emi- 
nence which  is  commonly  assigned  to  it  among  Mr. 
Webster's  oratorical  efforts.  And  yet  three  years  af- 
terwards he  made  a  speech,  of  which  one  of  our  most 
eminent  jurists,f  whose  name  is  never  pronounced  but 
with  reverence,  said,  in  writing  to  him,  "I  had  just 

*  January  26,  1830. 

f  The  late  Chancellor  Kent. 


21 

finished  the  rapturous  perusal  of  your  speech  on  the 
Protest,  as  appearing  in  the  Intelligencer  of  Saturday, 
when  I  had  the  pleasure  of  receiving  it  from  you  in  a 
pamphlet  form.  I  never  had  a  greater  treat  than  the 
reading  of  that  speech,  this  morning.  You  never 
equalled  this  effort.  It  surpasses  everything  in  logic 
— in  simplicity,  and  beauty,  and  energy  of  diction — 
in  clearness — in  rebuke — in  sarcasm — in  patriotic  and 
glowing  feelings — in  just  and  profound  constitutional 
views — in  critical  severity  and  matchless  strength.  It 
is  worth  millions  to  our  liberties." 

There  is  still  another  speech,  too  memorable  to  be 
passed  over  in  this  connexion,  but  too  recent  to  re- 
quire more  than  a  brief  reference.  We  are  now  very 
much  in  the  condition  of  a  ship,  which,  after  encoun- 
tering a  terrific  and  protracted  storm,  emerges  at  length 
into  a  tranquil  sea,  the  heavens  so  serene,  the  air  so 
bland,  the  sense  of  security  so  perfect,  that  all  the 
peril  and  anxiety  of  the  hurricane  are  as  though  they 
had  never  been.  It  is  difficult  to  realize  as  we  look 
abroad  over  our  peaceful  and  smiling  land,  and  see  the 
various  tribes  which  compose  our  population  dwelling 
together  in  unity — no  discontent,  no  alienation,  no 
local  jealousies,  no  political  controversies  of  sufficient 
moment  to  occasion  the  slightest  solicitude — that  three 
years  have  not  gone  by  since  the  whole  country  was 
convulsed  for  months  together  with  angry  discussions 
which  imperilled  the  very  existence  of  the  Union.  It 
was  no  false  alarm,  no  cry  of  women  and  children, 
which  startled  the  nation.     It  seemed  as  though  all 


oo 


the  fountains  of  sectional  bigotry  had  been  broken  up ; 
as  though  the  accumulated  resentments  of  a  half  cen- 
tury had  burst  forth  with  unheard-of  fury,  and  poured 
themselves  upon  the  ship  of  state  with  a  violence  which 
threatened  to  "  push  from  its  moorings  the  sacred  ark 
of  the  common  safety,  and  to  drive  this  gallant  vessel, 
freighted  with  everything  dear  to  an  American  bo- 
som, upon  the  rocks,  or  lay  it  a  sheer  hulk  upon  the 
ocean.""  It  was  an  emergency  which  appealed  with 
irresistible  pathos  and  energy  to  the  patriotism  of  the 
country.  And  the  appeal  was  not  in  vain.  Our  sanc- 
tuaries listened  to  unwonted  and  importunate  prayer 
for  the  perpetuity  of  our  beloved  Union.  States- 
men of  all  parties,  suspending  for  the  time  their  minor 
differences,  hastened  with  a  common  loyalty  to  the 
succour  of  their  common  country.  The  people  in  their 
might  and  majesty  assembled  to  deliberate  on  the 
crisis.  And  the  mandate  went  up  to  the  Capitol  from 
millions  of  voices,  like  the  sound  of  many  waters,  that 
the  Union  must  and  should  be  preserved.  But  this 
sublime  movement  of  the  people  was  itself  no  less  an 
effect  than  a  cause.  Its  mainspring  was  at  Washing- 
ton. The  Senate-chamber  was  again  'the  battle-field 
on  which  this  great  contest  was  to  be  decided.  And 
it  was,  for  the  second  time,  the  high  honour  of  Mr. 
Webster  to  strike  the  decisive  blow  for  the  integrity 
of  the  Union.  Other  men  there  were,  his  illustrious 
peers,  both  in  and  out  of  Congress,  who  contributed  in 
no  mean  degree  to  bring  about  the  propitious  result. 

*  William  Pinkney — on  the  Missouri  Question. 


23 

But  such  were  the  complications  of  parties,  and  such 
his  personal  antecedents  and  existing  affinities,  not  to 
add,  such  his  thorough  comprehension  of  every  one  of 
the  pregnant  questions  involved  in  the  controversy, 
that  to  him,  more  perhaps  than  to  any  other  indivi- 
dual, was  assigned  the  responsibility  of  determining 
the  final  issue.  He  accepted  the  trust,  and  planted 
himself  in  the  breach.  "  The  imprisoned  winds,"  said 
he  in  the  solemn  exordium  of  his  memorable  speech 
on  that  occasion,:;:  "^are  let  loose.  The  East,  the 
North,  and  the  stormy  South,  combine  to  throw  the 
whole  ocean  into  commotion,  to  toss  its  billows  to  the 
skies  and  disclose  its  profoundest  depths.  I  do  not 
affect  to  regard  myself,  Mr.  President,  as  holding,  or 
as  fit  to  hold,  the  helm  in  this  combat  with  the  politi- 
cal elements ;  but  I  have  a  duty  to  perform,  and  I 
mean  to  perform  it  with  fidelity,  not  without  a  sense 
of  existing  dangers,  but  not  without  hope."  Address- 
ing himself  to  the  difficult  and  perilous  task  in  this 
spirit,  he  took  up  the  debated  topics,  now  twisted  and 
matted  into  a  Gordian  knot,  and  resolved  the  tangled 
mass,  not  by  cutting,  but  by  untying  it.  One  by  one 
the  vexed  questions  were  drawn  out,  defined,  and  ad- 
justed to  each  other,  until  at  length  a  platform  was 
constructed,  honourable  to  the  North,  honourable  to 
the  South,  and  true  to  the  Constitution,  where  men  of 
all  types  might  sit  down  under  the  shadow  of  the 
Union  and  smoke  the  calumet.  It  would  be  too  much 
to  say  that  this  speech  restored  the  country  to  tran- 

*  March  1,  1850. 


24 


quillity.  But  the  country  instantly  began  to  breathe 
more  freely.  There  was  a  sort  of  feeling  that  Daniel 
Webster  was  a  safe  guide ;  and  that  if  he  had  found 
a  path  through  this  morass,  it  must  be  solid  footing 
for  those  who  chose  to  follow  him.  In  the  end,  after 
months  of  agitation,  which  gave  occasion  to  many  of 
our  ablest  statesmen  to  signalize  their  devotion  to  the 
Union,  the  great  mass  of  the  people  did  follow  him. 
By  the  favour  of  a  merciful  Providence,  the  Union 
was  not  only  preserved,  but  cemented. 

It  were  a  curious  speculation,  what  would  have 
been  the  probable  result  had  Mr.  Webster  thrown 
himself,  at  this  juncture,  into  the  opposite  scale  ;  had 
he,  instead  of  advising  mutual  conciliation  and  con- 
cession, taken  ground  boldly  against  the  Compromise, 
and  employed  his  great  powers  in  resisting  that  ad- 
justment. We  have  no  warrant  for  maintaining  that 
even  this  would  have  defeated  the  arrangement  in 
question ;  but  he  knows  little  of  the  weight  which 
Mr.  Webster's  name  carried  with  it,  who  can  doubt 
that  it  would  have  multiplied  the  obstructions  to  a 
settlement  a  hundred-fold.  The  people  of  this  country, 
as  a  body,  are  not  politicians.  And  throughout  all 
the  States  north  of  the  Potomac,  there  were  tens  of 
thousands  of  quiet,  industrious  citizens,  who,  irrespec- 
tive of  party  ties,  were  disposed  to  acquiesce  in  Mr. 
Webster's  opinions  on  all  questions  properly  national. 
Had  his  voice  gone  forth  at  this  crisis — "  These  mea- 
sures are  unjust  to  the  North;  they  are  subversive  of 
the  Constitution;  they  are  unrighteous  and  oppres- 


25 

% 

sive," — the  whole  country,  North  and  South,  would 
have  reeled  with  excitement,  and  all  the  previous 
agitation  would  have  been  but  as  the  tremor  which 
precedes  the  earthquake.  We  cannot  doubt,  it  would 
be  an  ungrateful  distrust  of  the  benign  Providence 
that  has  always  protected  us,  to  doubt,  that  even 
with  this  opposition,  the  nation  as  a  body  would 
ultimately  have  been  conducted  to  some  amicable 
solution  of  the  difficulty.  But  had  his  influence  been 
cast  into  the  adverse  scale,  the  quivering  beam  would 
have  held  the  nation  in  long  and  intolerable  suspense. 
From  this  trial  the  patriotism  and  fortitude  of  Mr. 
Webster  saved  us.  It  was  a  service  calculated  to  put 
both  these  qualities  to  the  test;  but  he  was  never 
found  wanting  where  the  Union  was  concerned.  In 
referring  to  this  occasion  more  than  a  year  afterwards, 
he  said,*  "  I  thought  it  my  duty  to  pursue  this  course, 
and  I  did  not  care  what  was  to  be  the  consequence. 
I  felt  it  was  my  duty  in  a  very  alarming  crisis,  to 
come  out ;  to  go  for  my  country  and  my  whole  coun- 
try; and  to  exert  any  power  I  had,  to  keep  that 
country  together.  I  cared  for  nothing,  I  was  afraid 
of  nothing,  but  I  meant  to  do  my  duty.  Duty  per- 
formed makes  a  man  happy ;  duty  neglected  makes  a 
man  unhappy.  I,  therefore,  in  the  face  of  all  discou- 
ragements and  all  dangers,  was  ready  to  go  forth  and 
do  what  I  thought  my  country — your  country — de- 
manded of  me.  And,  gentlemen,  allow  me  to  say 
here  to-day,  that  if  the  fate  of  John  Rogers  had  stared 

*  At  Buffalo. 


26 
t 
me  in  the  face,  if  I  had  seen  the  stake,  if  I  had  heard 

the  faggots  already  crackling,  by  the  blessing  of  Al- 
mighty God,  I  would  have  gone  on  and  discharged 
the  duty  which  I  thought  my  country  called  upon  me 
to  perform.  I  would  have  become  a  martyr  to  save 
that  country." 

Such  power  over  men  as  this  great  orator  displayed 
on  this  and  other  occasions,  is  a  godlike  endowment ; 
and  according  to  the  principles  by  which  it  is  con- 
trolled, will  it  spread  light  and  joy  over  a  land,  or  con- 
vert it  into  a  scene  of  devastation.  They  are  blessed 
indeed,  who  have  grace  given  them  to  use  such  an 
endowment  for  the  good  of  mankind ;  and  with  what 
terrific  fury  will  retributive  justice  avenge  itself  upon 
the  men  who  prostitute  these  high  gifts  to  purposes 
of  evil. 

The  closing  sentence  of  the  letter  of  Chancellor 
Kent,  quoted  a  few  moments  ago,  contains  a  thought 
that  should  be  noted.  "Your  speech  is  worth  millions 
to  our  liberties"  The  great  battles  of  freedom  are 
oftener  fought  in  the  Senate  than  in  the  field.  Mr. 
Webster's  life  was  consecrated  to  the  cause  of  enlight- 
ened, constitutional  liberty.  He  might  have  adopted 
as  his  own  the  motto  of  the  great  Selden,  mpi  *«w«c  nj« 
£X;u%iav :  (above  all  things,  liberty.)  In  those  elabo- 
rate arguments  which  enchained  by  turns  an  applaud- 
ing Senate  and  an  admiring  Court,  he  was  strength- 
ening the  foundations  of  our  political  edifice,  and 
making  it  a  safer  and  more  comfortable  home  for  the 
millions  who  have  sought  a  shelter  in  it.     All  his 


27 


sympathies  were  on  the  side  of  freedom  and  intelli- 
gent progress :  for  it  was  not  the  least  of  his  merits 
that  he  eluded  the  common  fault  of  superior  minds 
employed  in  the  more  recondite  branches  of  jurispru- 
dence, or  subjected  to  the  capricious  criticisms  of  the 
popular  voice.  Such  men  are  apt  to  become  conser- 
vative to  an  excess.  They  value  law  more  than 
justice.  They  distrust  and  dread  the  people.  They 
are  jealous  of  enlarging  their  political  franchises. 
They  look  with  complacency  upon  a  strong  govern- 
ment, and  read  nothing  but  danger  in  the  effervescence 
and  tumult  of  popular  gatherings,  where  the  masses 
meet  to  do  their  own  business  in  their  own  way.  No 
man  had  clearer  or  sounder  conceptions  than  this 
eminent  statesman,  of  the  essential  conditions  of 
national  freedom.  He  well  knew  that  self-govern- 
ment was  one  of  the  highest  and  most  difficult  func- 
tions, whether  for  individuals  or  for  nations.  He 
never  countenanced,  therefore,  that  delusive  and  fatal 
radicalism,  which  would  cast  all  the  thrones  of  Chris- 
tendom, and  those  who  sit  upon  them,  into  one  great 
bonfire,  and  replace  them  with  democratic  charters. 
But  while  he  recognised  the  need  of  some  preparatory 
training  as  indispensable  to  the  success  of  republican 
institutions,  he  was  inexorably  opposed  to  all  the 
maxims  and  traditions  of  arbitrary  rule,  and  ever 
ready  to  employ  his  argumentative  and  luminous 
eloquence  in  cheering  on  nations  which  were  strug- 
gling for  their  independence.  Of  this  we  have  two 
remarkable  illustrations  in  his  speeches  on  the  Greek 


28 

Revolution  and  the  Panama  Mission.     The  generous 
sentiments  so  worthy  of  a  statesman,  and  especially 
of  an  American  statesman,  which  pervade  these,  and 
indeed,  all  his  speeches,  characterize   also  his  diplo- 
matic papers.     They  are  impressed  on  every  page  of 
that  remarkable  document,  in  allusion  to  which  one 
of  our  own  distinguished  citizens,  who  recently  adorned 
the  second  office  in  the  Republic,  so  felicitously  said  at 
the  late  town-meeting,  "  Two  years  have  not  elapsed 
since  Mr.  Webster's  pungent,  powerful,  and  patriotic 
letter  to  Mr.  Ilulsemann  resounded  like  the  roar  of 
ordnance  throughout  Europe."     The  Cabinets  of  the 
other  hemisphere  were  left  in  no  uncertainty  as  to 
the  ground  on  which  our  Secretary,  and  the  govern- 
ment he  represented,  stood.     And  it  was  a  solace  to 
the  continental  nations  to  hear  their  oppressors  re- 
buked by  one,  who,  spurning  the  courtly  dialect  in 
which  ministers  and  ambassadors  are  accustomed  to 
disguise  their  real  sentiments,  dared  to  tell  them  in 
plain,  unvarnished  Saxon  words,  which  startled  the 
whole  realm  of  diplomacy,  that  America  would  not 
permit  any  foreign  interference  in  her  affairs ;  that 
while  they  abstained  from  any  intervention  in  the 
conflicts  of  Europe,  "  the  government  and  people  of 
the  United  States  could  not  remain  indifferent  specta- 
tors when  they  beheld  the  people  of  foreign  countries 
spontaneously  moving  towards  the  adoption  of  insti- 
tutions like  their  own ;"  and  that  "  nothing  should 
deter  them  from  exercising,  at  their  own  discretion, 
the  rights  belonging  to  them  as  an  independent  nation, 


29 

and  of  forming  and  expressing  their  own  opinions 
freely,  and  at  all  times,  upon  the  great  political  events 
which  may  transpire  among  the  .civilized  nations  of 
the  earth." 

Happily  for  Mr.  Webster's  fame  and  for  his  country, 
a  new  edition  of  his  works,  edited  by  a  distinguished 
personal  friend  (now  his  successor  in  the  Cabinet), 
was  published  under  his  own  eye,  but  a  few  months 
before  his  death.  With  the  exception  of  his  diplo- 
matic papers,  the  matter  contained  in  these  six  vo- 
lumes, has  all  been  spoken,  and  yet  it  savours  as  little 
of  the  character  of  mere  speech-makiug,  as  any  col- 
lection of  orations  or  addresses  in  the  language.  It  is 
the  most  valuable  contribution  which  has  been  made 
to  our  political  literature  since  the  era  of  the  Fede- 
ralist; and  no  professional  library  will  hereafter  be 
deemed  complete  without  it.  It  was  the  singular 
merit  of  Mr.  Webster,  that  he  was  able  to  embellish 
the  most  profound  disquisitions  in  political  science 
with  elegant  and  various  learning,  and  to  enshrine 
them  in  a  brilliant  and  majestic  eloquence.  The  ora- 
tor has  passed  away,  but  the  patriot — the  statesman — 
the  sage — is  immortal.  Open  his  works  at  random, 
and  you  will  instantly  feel  yourself  to  be  in  commu- 
nion with  a  master-mind.  Nearly  all  the  important 
events  in  our  history — the  origin  and  essential  attri- 
butes of  our  federal  and  state  governments,  the  deli- 
cate questions  growing  out  of  the  expansion  of  our  ter- 
ritory and  the  accession  of  new  states,  the  proper 
limitations  of  the  powers  vested  in  the  three  depart- 


30 


nients  of  the  government,  the  conduct  of  our  foreign 
relations,  the  services  of  the  founders  of  the  Republic, 
education,  the  mechanic  arts,  agriculture,  Christianity 
as  the  indispensable  basis  of  free  institutions — these 
are  among  the  subjects  he  has  discussed,  and  discussed 
in  such  a  way  that  he  appears  equally  at  home  with 
them  all.  Every  theme  to  which  he  applies  his  impe- 
rial intellect,  becomes  transparent.  Touched  by  his 
wand,  the  most  chaotic  mass  of  materials  is  reduced 
to  intelligible  forms.  Complex  details  are  classified. 
Principles  take  the  place  of  sophisms.  Declamation 
gives  way  to  argument.  Precedents  are  sifted  to  their 
last  analysis.  Consequences  are  portrayed  with  pro- 
phetic sagacity.  Objections  are  refuted.  One  strong- 
hold of  error  after  another  is  demolished.  And  you 
follow  on  wherever  the  great  orator  leads  the  way,  not 
because  he  has  so  fascinated  }*ou  with  the  sorcery  of 
his  eloquence,  that  you  are  no  longer  a  responsible 
agent,  but  because  your  reason  is  satisfied,  and  you 
have  the  witness  within  yourself  that  it  is  truth,  not 
victory,  at  which  he  is  aiming.  Fascinated,  indeed, 
you  may  be.  Who  could  be  otherwise  in  perusing 
those  admirable  performances  in  which  there  is  so  much 
to  gratify  the  taste,  to  enkindle  pure  and  generous 
emotions,  to  expand  the  mental  vision,  and  inspire  the 
soul  with  a  profounder  consciousness  of  its  intrinsic 
dignity  and  its  large  capacities.  And  yet,  in  all  and 
above  all,  it  is  your  reason  which  is  addressed  and  con- 
vinced. Mr.  Webster  never  fell  into  the  error  of  de- 
grading his  audience  beneath  the  proper  level  of  hu- 


31 

inanity,  and  treating  them  as  though  they  were  crea- 
tures of  mere  sensibility  or  mere  fancy,  who  cared  only 
to  be  excited  or  amused.  Whether  it  is  before  a 
crowded  Senate  or  a  Mechanics'  Institute,  before  the 
first  legal  tribunal  of  the  country,  or  a  heterogeneous 
mass-meeting,  assembled  from  the  palaces  and  the 
workshops  of  a  large  city,  he  never  forgets  that  he  is 
a  man  himself  and  is  speaking  to  men.  He  reverences, 
as  every  man  who  presumes  to  address  his  fellow-men 
in  public  or  through  the  press,  ought  to  reverence,  the 
human  understanding.  He  takes  it  for  granted  that 
you  want  to  be  reasoned  with;  that  nothing  will 
satisfy  you  but  truth  and  argument ;  and  that  to  at- 
tempt to  put  you  off,  when  you  are  eager  to  have  some 
great  problem  of  national  policy  or  personal  duty  re- 
solved, with  a  bouquet  of  tropes  or  a  quiver  of  invec- 
tives, would  be  like  mocking  an  exhausted  and  gasping 
caravan  in  the  desert,  by  rehearsing  to  them  the  tales 
in  the  Arabian  Nights  Entertainments.  A  few  intro- 
ductory words  of  courtesy  there  may  be,  and  then  for 
the  argument.  And  with  such  fairness  and  logical 
fidelity  does  he  pursue  the  argument — clothing  it  with 
a  diction  so  plain  as  to  be  intelligible  to  the  humblest 
capacity,  and  so  beautiful  as  to  satisfy  the  most  criti- 
cal taste — that  if  you  go  along  with  him  at  all,  as  you 
will  be  pretty  likely  to  do,  it  will  be  because  you  feel 
at  every  step  that  you  have  firm  ground  under  your 
feet,  and  know  what  you  are  about  just  as  well  as  you 
do  when  treading  the  familiar  rounds  of  your  daily 
avocation. 


32 

This,  in  fact,  is  one  of  the  characteristics  of  Mr. 
Webster's  speeches  which  warrant  ns  in  predicting 
that  they  will  be  as  imperishable  as  anything  in  our 
literature.  They  are  full  of  important  truth,  expressed 
in  a  manner  which  everybody  can  understand.  We 
may  say  of  him  what  a  profound  critic  has  said  of  Mr. 
Fox  :  "  For  ourselves,  we  think  we  never  heard  any 
man  who  dismissed  us  from  the  argument  on  a  debated 
topic,  with  such  a  feeling  of  satisfied  and  final  convic- 
tion, or  such  a  competence  to  tell  why  we  were  con- 
vinced. There  was,  in  the  view  in  which  subjects 
were  placed  by  him,  something  like  the  daylight,  that 
simple  clearness  which  makes  things  conspicuous  and 
does  not  make  them  glare,  which  adds  no  colour  or 
form,  but  purely  makes  visible  in  perfection  the  real 
colour  and  form  of  all  things  round ;  a  kind  of  light, 
less  amusing  than  that  of  magnificent  lustres,  or  a 
thousand  coloured  lamps,  and  less  fascinating  and  ro- 
mantic than  that  of  the  moon ;  but  which  is  immea- 
surably preferred  when  we  are  bent  on  sober  business, 
and  not  at  leisure,  or  not  in  the  disposition  to  wander 
delighted  among  beautiful  shadows  and  delusions.  It 
is  needless  to  say  that  he  possessed,  in  a  high  degree, 
wit  and  fancy ;  but  superlative  intellect  was  the  grand 
distinction  of  his  eloquence ;  the  pure  force  of  sense, 
of  plain,  downright  sense,  was  so  great  that  it  would 
have  given  a  character  of  sublimity  to  his  eloquence, 
even  if  it  had  never  once  been  aided  by  a  happy  image 
or  a  brilliant  explosion.     The  grandeur  of  plain  sense, 


33 

would  not  have  been  deemed  an  absurd  phrase,  by  any 
man  who  had  heard  one  of  his  best  speeches." 

When  to  these  considerations  it  is  added,  that  the 
great  questions  discussed  by  Mr.  Webster,  can  never 
cease  to  have  their  importance  while  our  institutions 
last,  we  may  assert  with  confidence,  that  his  writings 
will  become  an  indispensable  text-book  in  the  training 
of  our  future  civilians.  "  I  shall  take  care,"  said  Lord 
Erskine,  "to  put  the  works  of  Mr.  Burke  into  the 
hands  of  those  whose  principles  are  left  to  my  forma- 
tion." With  the  same  feeling,  many  an  American 
citizen  will  place  Mr.  Webster's  works  in  the  hands  of 
his  sons.  What  better  service,  indeed,  so  far  as  their 
secular  education  is  concerned,  could  we  render  them  ? 
Where  could  they  find  a  richer  repository  of  sound 
political  maxims,  of  lucid  and  comprehensive  views 
concerning  our  national  rights  and  duties,  and  of  mas- 
terly disquisitions  in  constitutional  jurisprudence? 
What  writings  would  do  more  to  make  them  thinkers 
and  reasoners ;  to  form  them  to  a  large  and  just  esti- 
mate of  their  social  and  civil  responsibilities ;  to  raise 
them  above  the  littlenesses  of  sectional  prejudice,  and 
put  the  stamp  of  a  broad  nationality  upon  their  pa- 
triotism ;  to  show  them  that  whatever  use  political 
parties  may  choose  to  make  of  their  honours,  and  to 
whomsoever  they  may  see  fit  to  vote  a  triumph,  a 
truly  great  mind,  animated  by  virtuous  sentiments 
and  embracing  the  whole  country  within  the  wide 
sweep  of  its  affections,  can  achieve  for  itself  a  reputa- 
tion which  no  party-idolatry  could  confer,  and  no  party- 


34 

malignity  annul ;  to  stimulate  them  to  seek,  not  the 
"  empty  blast  of  popular  favour  or  the  applause  of  a 
giddy  multitude,"  but  that  "  true  glory,"  which,  ac- 
cording to  the  prince  of  Roman  orators,  consists  "  in  a 
wide  and  illustrious  fame  of  many  and  great  benefits 
conferred  upon  our  friends,  our  country,  or  the  whole 
race  of  mankind  ;"*  and  to  impress  it  deeply  upon 
their  minds,  that  "  if  we  and  our  posterity  shall  be 
true  to  the  Christian  religion,  if  we  and  they  shall  live 
always  in  the  fear  of  God,  and  shall  respect  his  com- 
mandments, if  we  and  they  shall  maintain  just  moral 
sentiments,  and  such  conscientious  convictions  of  duty 
as  shall  control  the  heart  and  life,  we  may  have  the 
highest  hopes  of  the  future  fortunes  of  our  country ; 
....  but  if  we   and  our  posterity  reject  religious 
instruction  and  authority,  violate  the  rules  of  eternal 
justice,  trifle  with  the  injunctions  of  morality,  and 
recklessly   destroy   the   political   constitution   which 
holds   us  together,  no  man  can  tell  how  sudden  a 
catastrophe  may  overwhelm  us,  that  shall  bury  all 
our  glory  in  profound  obscurity. "f     These  are  among 
the  lessons  which  our  young  men  may  derive  from  the 
careful  study  of  the  works  of  Mr.  Webster ;  and  no 
wise  father  would  willingly  deprive  his  sons  of  the 
benefit  of  them. 

The  importance  of  the  subject  may  justify  us  in 
dwelling  a  little  longer  on  one  of  the  points  just  indi- 
cated— the  value  to  be  attached  to  the  life  and  writings 

*  Oration  for  Marcellus. 

-j-  Mr.  Webster's  Address  before  the  New  York  Historical  Society. 


35 

of  this  great  publicist,  as  an  auxiliary  in  the  training 
of  our  future  statesmen.  There  are  able  men  amongst 
us  whose  faith  in  the  permanency  of  the  Union  appears 
to  be  nearly  as  firm  as  their  confidence  in  the  stability 
of  the  solar  system.  We  may  certainly  congratulate 
ourselves  that,  through  the  favour  of  Divine  Provi- 
dence, our  complex  and  beautiful  scheme  of  government 
has  maintained  its  integrity  against  all  the  assaults 
hitherto  made  upon  it.  But  we  have  had  warnings 
enough  to  admonish  us  against  a  blind  self-confidence. 
Our  own  experience  forbids  us  to  look  for  any  exemp- 
tion from  those  intestine  broils  and  commotions  with 
which  all  other  nations  have  been  agitated.  In  a 
country  of  such  vast  extent,  increasing  in  population 
and  resources  with  a  rapidity  which  makes  a  new  atlas 
necessary  every  five  years,  with  the  utmost  diversity 
of  climate  and  productions,  conflicting  sectional  inte- 
rests, commercial  and  diplomatic  relations  spread  all 
over  the  globe,  thirty-one  jealous  and  powerful  state 
governments  closely  interlocked  with  a  grand  central 
administration,  and  sensitive  to  the  slightest  apparent 
invasion  of  their  sovereignty,  and  twenty-five  millions 
of  people  animated  by  an  energetic,  if  it  must  not  be 
said,  an  aggressive,  Caucasian  spirit, — in  such  a  coun- 
try, occasions  for  discord  and .  alienation  can  never  be 
wanting,  if  there  are  individuals  at  hand  whose  inte- 
rest it  is  to  find  or  create  them.  To  provide  for  these 
emergencies,  and  as  far  as  possible  prevent  or  mitigate 
them,  we  must  look  well  to  the  education,  mental 
and  moral,  of  our  youth.     The  church  and  the  school- 


36 

house — the  Bible  enthroned  in  both — must  be,  under 
God,  our  first  reliance.  Next  to  this,  we  need  states- 
men like  him  we  have  lost,  and  like  some  who  sur- 
vive him.  The  ambition  of  ordinary  minds  cannot 
soar  to  this  elevation.  Nor  can  the  most  generous 
intellects  attain  it  without  encountering  hostile  influ- 
ences, which  are  generated  by  the  natural  working  of 
our  institutions.  Where  office  depends  on  the  popular 
voice,  the  representative  will  find  himself  under  a  pow- 
erful temptation  to  merge  all  other  political  obligations 
in  his  supposed  duty  to  his  immediate  constituency. 
The  claims  of  his  district  will  take  precedence  over  those 
of  his  state ;  and  loyalty  to  his  state  will  be  stronger 
than  his  loyalty  to  the  general  government.  Nor  is  this 
the  only  adverse  agency  to  be  met.  A  despotism 
may  flourish  without  parties ;  for  the  dead  are  always 
still :  but  no  free  government  has  ever  got  on  without 
them.  In  itself  this  is  an  advantage ;  but  the  prac- 
tical tendency  of  it  is  to  dwarf  men  into  partisans. 
They  are  apt  to  sink  both  their  individuality  and 
their  patriotism  in  servility  to  a  party,  and  to  employ 
those  powers  which  should  have  been  dedicated  to 
their  country,  in  the  miserable  contests  of  factions 
and  sections. 

Here,  precisely,  in  the  ability  of  a  man  to  rise 
above  these  local  and  party  affinities — to  frame  his 
views  of  truth  and  duty  on  a  large  and  candid  survey 
of  things,  and  then  to  follow  out  his  convictions  irre- 
spective of  personal  consequences — lies  one  of  the 
essential  insignia  of  the  genuine  patriot  and  states- 


37 

man,  which  distinguish  him  from  the  mere  pretender. 
"  A  public  man  has  no  occasion  to  be  embarrassed,  if 
he  is  honest.  Himself  and  his  feelings  should  be  to 
him  as  nobody  and  as  nothing;  the  interest  of  his 
country  must  be  to  him  as  everything ;  he  must  sink 
what  is  personal  to  himself,  making  exertions  for  his 
country ;  and  it  is  his  ability  and  readiness  to  do  this 
which  are  to  mark  him  as  a  great  or  a  little  man  in 
all  time  to  come."*  This  test,  it  must  be  admitted,  is 
a  very  severe  one.  The  moral  courage  and  self-immo- 
lation it  demands  are  alien  from  all  the  natural  in- 
stincts of  the  human  breast ;  and  if  political  honours 
and  emoluments  alone  are  regarded,  this  exalted  kind 
of  patriotism  will  find  but  too  little  to  nourish  it  in 
the  annals  of  our  race.  It  is  for  this  very  reason  we 
should  seize  upon  every  means  which  is  placed  within 
our  reach,  to  foster  and  diffuse  it.  And  in  this  view, 
what  a  legacy  has  the  Eepublic  received  in  the  ex- 
ample and  the  writings  of  Daniel  Webster.  Without 
challenging  for  this  eminent  man  a  moral  perfection 
which  his  warmest  friends  have  never  claimed  for 
him,  it  may  be  questioned  whether  the  country  will 
not  yet  reap  from  his  services  even  greater  advantages 
than  those  he  conferred  upon  her  while  living.  There 
is  his  public  career — a  study  for  the  youth  of  America 
in  all  coming  time.  The  career  of  a  patriot-states- 
man, impressed  throughout  with  characters  of  light 
and  truth ;  not  like  a  huge  meteor  flashing  fantastic 
fires,    and   startling   the   nations   with   its   eccentric 

*  Mr.  Webster's  speech  at  Funeuil  Hall,  September  30th,  1842. 


38 

motions,  but  like  a  mountain  stream,  swelling  by 
degrees  into  a  broad,  majestic  river,  spreading  fertility 
along  its  banks,  lending  beauty  to  the  landscape, 
ministering  health  and  comfort  and  prosperity  to 
numerous  populations,  and  bearing  on  its  tranquil 
bosom  the  products  of  many  climes  and  countries. 
Is  not  such  a  career  a  substantial  addition  to  the 
moral  wealth  of  the  nation  ?  Is  it  not  a  source  of 
strength  to  every  father  who  would  imbue  his  sons 
with  an  intelligent  and  comprehensive  love  of  country ; 
to  every  patriot  who  would  extinguish,  as  often  as 
they  reappear,  the  flames  of  sectional  jealousy ;  to 
every  constituency  that  may  be  exposed  to  the  arts 
of  aspiring  demagogues ;  to  the  teachers  of  religion 
who  value  our  institutions  as  well  for  their  connexion 
with  a  pure  Christianit}^  as  for  their  secular  benefits ; 
and  to  the  throng  of  young  men  always  ready  to 
launch  away  into  the  rough  sea  of  politics,  who  would 
fain  adopt,  before  starting,  some  wise  and  just  prin- 
ciples which  might  conduct  them  to  an  honourable,  if 
not  a  speedy,  fame  ?  One  thing,  at  least,  must  be 
conceded.  Mr.  Webster  has  made  it  more  difficult 
than  it  ever  was  before,  to  break  the  Union  to  pieces. 
And  that,  not  simply  by  his  masterly  exposition  of 
the  Constitution,  but  by  the  whole  influence  which 
attached  to  his  name  while  living,  and  which  now 
attaches  to  his  memory.  It  must  tell  with  power 
upon  the  country  for  generations  to  come,  that  he,  by 
common  consent,  the  first  American  jurist,  orator, 
and  statesman  of  his  day,  was  one  who,  throughout 


39 

his  long  and  brilliant  career,  looked  steadfastly  to  the 
prosperity  of  the  whole  country ;  that  he  endeavoured 
to  allay  all  sectional  bickerings,  and  to  suppress  the 
misrepresentations  and  calumnies  which  engender 
them;  that  by  his  speeches  and  writings  he  sought 
to  make  the  different  portions  of  the  confederacy 
better  acquainted  with  each  other,  and  thus  to  abate 
their  mutual  antipathies ;  that  he  scorned  the  selfish 
provincial  ambition  which  would  use  the  passions  and 
prejudices  of  well-meaning  but  misguided  people,  as  a 
ladder  to  mount  to  place  and  power ;  that  neither 
wholesale  slander  from  a  venal  press,  nor  the  threat- 
ened displeasure  of  his  own  commonwealth,  could 
deter  him  from  any  step  which  he  believed  to  be 
essential  to  the  welfare  of  the  Union ;  that  no  earthly 
consideration  could  tempt  him  to  swerve  from  his 
devotion  to  the  Constitution,  "the  only  bulwark  of 
our  liberties  and  of  our  national  character ;"  that  at  a 
great  crisis  of  our  affairs,  when  the  surges  of  Northern 
fanaticism  and  of  Southern  disunionism  broke  over 
him,  as  he  stood  up  in  the  Senate-chamber,  with  a 
simultaneous  and  common  fury,  the  only  effect  upon 
him  was  to  make  him  grasp  the  South  and  the  North 
with  a  firmer  hand,  while  he  poured  into  their  ears 
his  affectionate  and  eloquent  remonstrance,  "  Let 
there  be  no  strife  between  you,  for  ye  are  brethren ;" 
and  that  when  his  patriotic  and  beneficent  career  was 
terminated,  men  of  all  parties  commingled  their  tears 
around  his  bier,  and  the  entire  nation  mourned  him 
as  a  public  benefactor,  the  motto  of  whose  life  had 


40 

been  that  sublime  sentiment,  now  doubly  "  dear  to 
every  true  American  heart — Liberty  and  Union,  now 

AND  FOR  EVER,  ONE  AND  INSEPARABLE  !" 

Before  passing  to  the  only  remaining  topic  I  pro- 
pose to  notice,  a  few  words  may  be  allowed  respecting 
the  private  character  of  the  deceased  senator.  It  has 
been  correctly  observed,  that "  distinguished  statesmen 
generally  become  what  may  be  called  technical  cha- 
racters :  the  whole  human  being  becomes  shaped  into 
an  official  thing,  and  Nature's  own  man,  with  free 
faculties,  and  warm  sentiments,  and  unconstrained 
manners,  has  disappeared."  It  was  not  so  with  Mr. 
Webster.  Nature  had  entrenched  herself  too  strongly 
in  that  colossal  frame,  to  be  driven  out,  and  he  re- 
mained "her  own  man"  to  the  end.  Persons  who 
only  saw  him  in  a  transient  way  might  suppose  he 
was  simply  a  man  of  extraordinary  intellect.  Those 
who  heard  him,  even  in  his  more  elaborate  efforts, 
could  not  fail  to  see  that  he  was  also  a  man  of  gene- 
rous sensibilities.  But  whoever  was  so  fortunate  as 
to  meet  him  in  social  life,  would  learn  that  so  far 
from  being  all  head,  he  had  a  heart  which  was 
worthy  to  be  the  consort  of  that  massive  intellect. 
Nothing  could  obliterate — nothing  even  blunt  his  ear- 
nest sympathy  with  nature  and  with  man.  Neither 
his  professional  toils  nor  affairs  of  state,  neither  the 
applause  nor  the  ingratitude  of  the  public,  could  dis- 
turb the  perennial  freshness  of  his  feelings.  He  loved 
the  country.  He  delighted  in  the  free  intercourse  of 
social  life.     His  domestic  affections  were  strong  and 


41 


tender.  He  entered  with  a  genial  relish  into  the 
vivacity  and  humour  of  the  passing  hour.  His  gene- 
rosity was  proverbial.  He  was  a  steadfast  friend — 
always  frank,  straight-forward,  reliable — 

"  A  minister,  but  still  a  man."* 


It  was  a  noble  eulogium  pronounced  upon  Mr. 
Clay,  the  second  of  our  great  triumvirate  who  was 
gathered  to  his  fathers,  when  a  representative  from 
his  own  State  said,  over  his  remains,  "  If  I  were  to 
write  his  epitaph,  I  would  inscribe,  as  the  highest 
eulogy,  on  the  stone  which  shall  mark  his  resting- 
place,  '  Here  lies  a  man  who  was  in  the  public  service 
for  fifty  years,  and  never  attempted  to  deceive  his 
countrymen  !' '  The  inscription  might  with  equal 
fidelity  be  inscribed  upon  the  tombs  of  his  great  com- 
peers. Of  the  third  of  this  illustrious  trio,  Mr.  Web- 
ster himself  said,  before  the  Senate,  on  the  occasion 
of  his  funeral — 

"  He  had  the  basis — the  indispensable  basis — of  all 
high  character,  and  that  was  unspotted  integrity — 
unimpeached  honour  and  character.  If  he  had  aspi- 
rations, they  were  high,  and  honourable,  and  noble. 
There  was  nothing  grovelling,  or  low,  or  meanly 
selfish,  that  came  near  the  head  or  the  heart  of  Mr. 

*  Of  his  magnanimity  we  have  this  pleasing  example.  Mr.  Eve- 
rett relates,  that  in  preparing  the  new  edition  of  Mr.  "Webster's 
works  for  the  press,  he  was  instructed  by  him  to  obliterate  from 
his  speeches,  if  practicable,  "  every  trace  of  personality." 


42 

Calhoun.  Firm  in  his  purpose,  perfectly  patriotic 
and  honest,  as  I  am  sure  he  was,  in  the  principles  he 
espoused,  and  in  the  measures  he  defended,  aside 
from  that  large  regard  for  that  species  of  distinction 
that  conducted  him  to  eminent  stations  for  the  benefit 
of  the  Republic,  I  do  not  believe  he  had  a  selfish 
motive  or  a  selfish  feeling. 

"  We  shall  hereafter,  I  am  sure,  indulge  in  it  as  a 
grateful  recollection  that  we  have  lived  in  his  age, 
that  we  have  been  his  cotemporaries,  that  we  have 
seen  him,  and  heard  him,  and  known  him.  We  shall 
delight  to  speak  of  him  to  those  who  are  rising  up 
to  fill  our  places.  And  when  the  time  shall  come 
when  we  ourselves  shall  go,  one  after  another,  in 
succession  to  our  graves,  Ave  shall  carry  with  us  a 
deep  sense  of  his  genius  and  character,  his  honour 
and  integrity,  his  amiable  deportment  in  private  life, 
and  the  purity  of  his  exalted  patriotism." 

Mr.  Webster  himself  might  have  sat  for  this  fine 
portrait.  It  is  his  own  character  by  a  master-hand. 
If  the  fidelity  of  the  sketch  be  doubted,  there  are 
competent  witnesses  to  confirm  it.  "  Mr.  President," 
said  a  leading  member*  of  the  New  York  Bar  the 
other  day,  a  gentleman  and  a  Christian;  "I  have 
long  been  acquainted  with  Mr.  Webster,  and  from  all 
that  I  know,  and  from  all  that  I  have  seen  and  heard, 
I  bear  testimony  here  to-day,  that  as  a  public  man, 
he  was  a  man  of  the  highest  integrity.  It  always 
seemed  to  me  as  if  he  acted  under  the  immediate 

*  Hiram  Ketchum,  Esq. 


43 

conviction,  that  whatever  he  did  was  not  only  to  be 
known  to  his  own  generation,  but  to  posterity.  He 
regarded  political  power  in  his  own  hands  as  a  trust, 
and  though  always  willing  and  desirous  to  gratify  his 
friends,  if  he  could,  he  never  felt  himself  at  liberty, 
for  an  instant,  for  any  private  means,  to  violate  his 
great  trust.  I  have  known  Mr.  Webster  in  private 
circles,  and  in  domestic  life,  and  I  bear  testimony 
here  to-day,  that  though  I  have  received  multitudes 
of  letters  from  him  which  I  now  have,  and  many  that 
have  been  destroyed  by  his  orders,  written  in  the 
most  confidential  and  friendly  manner — though  I 
have  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting  him  on  many  occa- 
sions, and  at  the  festive  board  often  where  our  ses- 
sions have  been  long — I  bear  testimony  here  to-day, 
that  never  in  my  life  did  I  hear  an  improper  thought 
or  profane  expression  come  from  the  lips  of  Daniel 
Webster;  and  I  bear  further  testimony,  that  never, 
in  writing  or  in  my  hearing,  did  he  ever  assail  private 
character.  No  man  was  ever  slandered — no  man  was 
ever  spoken  ill  of  by  Daniel  Webster.  And  I  further 
bear  testimony,  that  never  in  my  life  have  I  known 
a  man  whose  conversation  was  uniformly  so  unexcep- 
tionable in  its  tone,  and  uniformly  so  edifying  in  its 
character.  I  may  say  further,  that  no  man  ever 
possessed  greater  tenderness  of  feeling.  He  never 
yet  had  an  enemy — and  we  all  can  bear  witness  that 
he  had  enemies  of  the  most  malignant  character 
— but  he  never  yet  had  an  enemy  that  if  he  came  to 
him  he  would  not  have   shared  with  him  his  last 


44 

dollar  to  relieve  him,  and  mingle  his  sympathies  with 
his.  Mr.  President,  to  say  that  these  virtues  were 
not  marked  with  failings — to  say  that  Daniel  Webster 
was  without  them,  would  be  to  state  that  which  was 
untrue ;  but  they  have  been  before  the  public  again 
and  again,  and  no  friend  of  his  could  regret  the  fact, 
if  they  had  not  been  exaggerated." 

Another  distinguished  lawyer*  of  that  city  said  :  "  I 
knew  Mr.  Webster  well.  I  had  the  honour  of  his 
acquaintance,  and  hope  it  is  not  too  much  to  say,  of 
his  friendship,  for  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century, 
and  from  his  lips  I  never  have  heard  an  irreverent, 
a  profane,  or  an  unseemly  expression,  while  his  play- 
ful wit,  his  deep  philosophy,  his  varied  acquirements, 
and  unrivalled  powers  of  conversation,  are  among  the 
richest  treasures  of  my  recollection." 

These  testimonies,  comprising,  as  they  do,  a  minute 
scrutiny  into  the  social  habits  of  Mr.  Webster  for  a 
long  term  of  years,  such  as  few  men  of  any  profession 
could  bear,  will  do  much  to  vindicate  his  reputation 
from  the  aspersions  cast  upon  it  by  a  malign  party 
spirit.  It  is,  however,  the  letters  of  great  men  which 
best  reflect  their  personal  traits ;  and  we  must  wait 
for  his  private  correspondence  before  we  can  properly 
appreciate  those  generous  qualities  which  have  been 
attributed  to  him.  Judging  from  the  specimens  which 
have  been  published,  his  letters,  when  collected,  will 
not  only  form  one  of  the  most  attractive  volumes  in 
the  language,  but  will  amply  authenticate  the  warm- 

*  J.  Prescott  Hall,  Esq. 


45 

est  encomiums  his  friends  have  pronounced  upon  his 
private  virtues.  Notice,  for  example,  the  strain  of 
his  reply  to  the  letter  he  received  two  years  ago  from 
a  large  number  of  his  old  friends  and  neighbours  in 
New  Hampshire,  in  which  he  says,  "  I  could  pour  out 
my  heart  in  tenderness  of  feeling  for  the  affectionate 
letter  which  comes  from  you.  It  is  like  the  love  of  a 
family  circle ;  its  influences  fall  upon  my  heart  as 
the  dew  of  heaven."  So,  again,  the  letter  on  his 
early  life,  in  which  he  describes  the  paternal  farm, 
and  narrates  the  circumstances  which  induced  his 
father  to  send  him  to  college,  "  in  order,"  as  one  of 
his  brothers  used  to  say,  "  to  make  him  equal  to  the 
rest  of  the  children."  In  this  letter  he  makes  a  touch- 
ing allusion  to  the  dead  of  the  household. 

"  Looking  out  at  the  east  windows,  [the  letter  is 
dated  at  Franklin,  May  3d,  1846,]  at  this  moment 
(2  P.  m.)  with  a  beautiful  sun  just  breaking  out,  my 
eye  sweeps  a  rich  and  level  field  of  one  hundred  acres. 
At  the  end  of  it,  a  third  of  a  mile  off,  I  see  plain  mar- 
ble grave-stones,  designating  the  places  where  repose 
my  father,  my  mother,  my  brother  Joseph,  and  my 
sisters,  Mehitable,  Abigail,  and  Sarah,  good  Scripture 
names  inherited  from  their  Puritan  ancestors. 

"  My  father !  Ebenezer  Webster ! — born  at  Kingston, 
in  the  lower  part  of  the  State,  in  1739 — the  hand- 
somest man  I  ever  saw,  except  my  brother  Ezekiel, 
who  appeared  to  me,  and  so  does  he  now  seem  to  me, 
the  very  finest  human  form  that  ever  I  laid  eyes  on. 
I  saw  him  in  his  coffin — a  white  forehead — a  tinged 


46 

cheek — a  complexion  as  clear  as  heavenly  light !  But 
where  am  I  straying?  The  grave  has  closed  upon 
him,  as  it  has  on  all  my  brothers  and  sisters.  We 
shall  soon  be  all  together.  But  this  is  melancholy, 
and  I  leave  it.  Dear — dear  kindred  blood,  how  Hove 
you  all  /" 

There  is  another  affecting  allusion  to  these  graves, 
in  that  inimitable  letter  written  to  his  farmer  at  Frank- 
lin, from  Washington,  in  March  last,  and  beginning 
thus  : — "John  Taylor — Go  ahead.  The  heart  of  the 
winter  is  broken,  and  before  the  first  day  of  April,  all 
your  land  may  be  ploughed."  Then  in  the  midst  of 
minute  agricultural  directions,  comes  in  this  beautiful 
and  characteristic  sentence  : — "  Take  care  to  keep  my 
mothers  garden  in  good  order,  even  if  it  cost  you  the 
wages  of  a  man  to  take  care  of  it."  The  letter  closes 
thus  : — "  John  Taylor,  thank  God,  morning  and  even- 
ing, that  you  were  born  in  such  a  country.  John 
Taylor,  never  write  me  another  word  upon  politics. 
Give  my  kindest  remembrances  to  your  wife  and  chil- 
dren ;  and  when  you  look  from  your  eastern  windows 
upon  the  graves  of  my  family,  remember  that  he  who 
is  the  author  of  this  letter  must  soon  follow  them  to 
another  world." 

It  is  in  familiar  epistles  like  these  we  see  the  heart 
of  the  great  statesman  laid  open :  and  the  more  fully 
it  is  unveiled,  the  more  opulent  will  it  be  found  in 
those  affections  and  sympathies,  which  are  rarely  com- 
bined with  the  highest  abilities,  and  as  rarely  outlast 
the  cares  and  collisions  of  a  long  political  career. 


47 

His  devotion  to  agriculture  lias  been  hinted  at :  and 
rural  occupations  always  have  a  tendency  to  keep  up 
a  healthful  tone  of  feeling.  But  his  communings  were 
not  all  with  nature.     He  was  like  Cowley : — 

"  Ah,  yet,  ere  I  descend  to  the  grave, 
May  I  a  small  house  and  large  garden  have  ! 
And  a  few  friends  and  many  books,  both  true, 

Both  wise,  and  both  delightful  too  !" 

The  '  large  garden/  the '  friends/  (though  not  a '  few') 
and  the  l  many  books/  he  had ;  and  well  did  he  use 
them.  The  love  of  books  was  an  early  passion  with 
him.  He  could  recite  the  whole  Essay  on  Man  ver- 
batim before  he  was  fourteen  years  old.  And  while 
still  a  boy,  he  committed  to  memory,  not  as  a  task, 
but  as  a  pleasure,  Watts's  Psalms  and  Hymns.  Nor 
was  he  less  fond  of  the  sublime  poetry  of  the  Bible. 
These  habits  continued  with  him  through  life.  A 
very  competent  authority  has  remarked,  that  "the 
celebrity  of  Lord  Mansfield  and  Lord  Stowell,  as  judges, 
is  in  no  small  degree  owing  to  their  having  continued 
to  refresh  and  to  embellish  their  professional  labours ' 
by  perusing  the  immortal  productions  of  poets,  histo- 
rians, and  moralists."  Mr.  Webster  pursued  the  same 
course  and  with  the  same  results.  The  ancient  and 
modern  Classics  were,  with  the  Bible,  his  daily  com- 
panions. His  capacious  mind  was  a  store-house  of 
useful  and  elegant  learning,  gathered  from  every 
source — from  books,  from  careful  observation  of  men 
and  things,  from  a  ripe  experience  and  much  reflec- 


48 

tiou.  This  various  and  ample  knowledge  was  so  di- 
gested and  arranged  as  to  be  always  at  his  command. 
He  could  employ  it  with  equal  facility  to  instruct  and 
amuse  the  social  circle,  to  compose,  if  occasion  required 
it,  a  Historical  Discourse,  which  should  astonish  the 
country  at  the  minuteness  and  accuracy  of  his  classi- 
cal lore,  or  to  enrich  his  speeches  with  those  graceful 
allusions  and  illustrations  which  are  to  an  elaborate 
argument  what  the  drapery  is  to  the  portrait,  and  the 
feather  to  the  shaft.  Let  the  young  men  of  his  profes- 
sion profit  by  this  example.  No  mind  can  be  fed  exclu- 
sively on  law,  without  suffering.  Nature  will  be  certain 
to  resent  the  huge  indignity.  He  who  would  rise  above 
the  penury  of  the  mere  pleader,  must  have  at  least  a 
sprinkling  of  books  in  his  library,  which  are  not  bound 
in  the  canonical  hue — some  relief  to  the  dismal  mono- 
tony. Lord  Eldon,  it  is  true,  might  be  cited,  as  an 
adverse  precedent :  for  he  once  astonished  the  Bar,  it 
is  said,  by  telling  them  that,  during  the  long  vacation, 
he  had  read  "  Paradise  Lod."  But  it  should  be  added 
that  nature  took  her  revenge  even  upon  a  Lord  Chan- 
cellor ;  since,  according  to  Lord  Campbell,  towards  the 
close  of  life,  he  could  scarcely  speak  or  write  gram- 
matically. Whatever  a  mans  profession,  the  only 
way  in  which  he  can  elude  the  tendency  to  become  a 
narrow,  technical,  stereotype  character,  is  to  go  forth 
occasionally  into  regions  which  lie  beyond  his  daily 
walks ;  to  talk  with  people  of  other  creeds  and  other 
callings ;  to  make  excursions  into  the  domain  of  science, 
and  to  appropriate  some  portion  of  his  time,  even  if  it  be 


49 

but  its  brief  remnants  and  parentheses,  to  literary  pur- 
suits. The  error  of  those  who  neglect  this,  is  only  less 
pernicious  than  that  which  they  fall  into,  who  degrade 
their  profession  to  a  secondary  place,  and  bestow  their 
chief  case  upon  other  studies.  We  honour  literature  in 
a  Lawyer,  a  Physician,  or  a  Divine ;  but  we  cease  to 
honour  it  when  it  becomes  paramount.  The  noblest 
forensic  arguments 

"  May  flow  from  lips  wet  with  Castalian  dews  :" 

but  Benches  and  Juries  would  be  very  impatient  of  an 
advocate  whose  speeches  should  sparkle  with  Castalian 
dews — and  with  nothing  else.  And,  certainly,  any 
congregation  would  be  warranted  in  dismissing  a  pastor 
who  should  habitually  substitute  literary  essays  for 
the  Gospel  of  Christ. — But  it  is  time  to  return  from 
this  digression. 

Undoubtedly  Mr.  Webster  had  his  failings;  and 
with  some  minds  of  a  peculiar  cast,  these  may  even 
make  it  a  matter  of  doubtful  expediency  to  comment 
upon  his  character  from  the  pulpit.  It  were  certainly 
delightful  could  we  dwell  on  his  life  and  services  with- 
out making  any  deduction  for  personal  defects.  What- 
ever those  defects  were,  they  will  find  no  vindication 
here.  But  neither  shall  they  be  exaggerated  here. 
Exaggerated  they  doubtless  have  been,  for  such  is  the 
evil  custom  of  the  country.  We  have  got  it  by  inhe- 
ritance. In  one  of  his  shrewd  and  caustic  letters  from 
England,  Voltaire  observes,  "  So  violent  did  I  find  par- 


ties  in  London,  that  I  was  assured  by  several,  that  the 
Duke  of  Marlborough  was  a  coward,  and  Mr.  Pope  a 
fool."  If  we  may  trust  the  partisan  press  of  the  Union, 
we  seldom  have  a  citizen  nominated  for  any  of  the 
chief  trusts  of  the  government,  who  is  not  a  fool,  a 
coward,  or  a  drunkard.  An  eminent  civilian  whose 
virtues  adorn  every  domestic  and  social  relation,  re- 
marked in  his  place  in  the  Senate  a  few  months  since, 
that  when  his  name  was  before  the  country  as  a  can- 
didate for  the  Presidency,  he  was  charged  with  every 
crime  except  one  mentioned  in  the  decalogue.  It  is 
an  indelible  stigma  upon  the  national  character,  that 
the  freedom  of  the  press  should  be  permitted  to  de- 
generate into  this  intolerable  licentiousness.  How 
much  of  injustice  the  illustrious  man  whom  Providence 
has  taken  from  us,  may  have  suffered  in  this  way,  I 
know  not :  that  he  encountered  his  full  share  of  de- 
traction, will  be  conceded  by  all  who  are  willing  to 
judge  others  as  they  would  be  judged  themselves.  For 
myself,  I  have  no  sympathy  with  those  persons  who 
when  the  sun  is  mentioned,  can  think  only  of  his 
spots.  I  can  take  no  pleasure  in  dwelling  on  the  al- 
leged frailties  of  a  man  like  Daniel  Webster.  I  choose 
rather  to  leave  them  where  all  our  errors  and  delin- 
quencies must  be  left,  and  to  dwell  on  those  aspects  of 
his  character  and  life  which  are  stamped  with  true  ex- 
cellence and  genuine  sublimity,  and  which  entitle  him 
to  the  lasting  gratitude  of  the  American  people. 

It  is  a  satisfaction  to  me  to  know  that  the  convic- 
tions I  entertain  on  this  point,  are  shared  by  those  gen- 


tlemen  whose  official  pastoral  relations  to  him  give  a 
peculiar  value  to  their  opinions.  And  I  feel  with  them 
that  the  friends  of  religion  may  cherish  a  just  pride  in 
appealing  to  the  numerous  testimonies  he  has  left  to 
the  truth  and  efficacy  of  the  Christian  system. :: 

Any  attempt,  indeed,  to  estimate  Mr.  Webster's  cha- 
racter and  labours,  which  should  omit  or  disparage  this 
element,  would  be  radically  defective.  He  himself 
said  with  great  truth  and  beauty,  in  announcing  to 
the  Supreme  Court  of  Massachusetts  the  death  of  Jere- 
miah Masonf — "  Religion  is  a  necessary  and  indispen- 
sable element  in  any  great  human  character.  There 
is  no  living  without  it.  Religion  is  the  tie  that  con- 
nects man  with  his  Creator,  and  holds  him  to  his 
throne.     If  that  tie  be  sundered,  all  broken,  he  floats 

*  I  shall  violate  no  confidence  by  publishing  the  following  para- 
graph from  a  letter  I  have  received  from  my  old  school-fellow  and 
valued  friend,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Butler,  of  Washington  : — "I  do  believe 
that  Mr.  Webster  was  a  truly  converted  and  religious  man.  He 
was  for  more  than  five  years  a  communicant  in  my  Church,  and  al- 
ways treated  me,  as  his  Pastor,  with  great  affection,  attention,  and 
respect.  His  conduct  in  church  was  very  reverent.  His  interest  in 
solemn  and  direct  preaching  was  very  evident ;  his  emotions  often 
manifest;  his  dislike  of  flummery  and  pretension  in  the  pulpit  in- 
tense; his  love  of  clear,  strong,  personal,  affectionate  presentation  of 
the  most  distinguishing  and  important  truths  of  the  Gospel,  propor- 
tionably  warm.  His  conversation  with  me  was  more  frequently  than 
that  of  most  religious  men,  on  religious  subjects.  He  never  left  the 
Church  on  Communion  Sundays  without  coming  to  the  communion; 
and  his  participation  of  that  sacrament  was  marked  with  a  peculiar 
concentration  and  solemnity  of  feeling." 
f  November  14,  1848. 


59 


away,  a  worthless  atom  in  the  universe ;  its  proper  at- 
tractions all  gone,  its  destiny  thwarted,  and  its  whole 
future  nothing  but  darkness,  desolation,  and  death.  A 
man  with  no  sense  of  religious  duty  is  he  whom  the 
Scriptures  describe  in  such  terse  but  terrific  language, 
as  living  '  without  God  in  the  world.'  Such  a  man 
is  out  of  his  proper  being,  out  of  the  circle  of  all  his 
duties,  out  of  the  circle  of  all  his  happiness,  and  away. 
far,  far  away  from  the  purposes  of  his  creation." 

These  were  no  words  of  idle  compliment.  They 
were  convictions  inwrought  in  the  very  framework  of 
his  being.  The  Bible  was  one  of  the  books  on  which 
his  childhood  had  been  nurtured.  He  continued  a 
diligent  student  of  it  through  life.  lie  said  to  a  friend 
a  few  years  since,  "  I  have  read  through  the  entire 
Bible  many  time*.  I  now  make  a  practice  to  go 
through  it  once  a  year.  It  is  the  book  of  all  others 
for  Lawyers  as  well  as  for  Divines ;  and  I  pity  the 
man  that  cannot  find  in  it  a  rich  supply  of  thought 
and  of  rules  for  his  conduct :  it  fits  man  for  life — it 
prepares  him  for  death."  This  reminds  one  of  Fisher 
Ames,  who  once  said,  perhaps  with  too  little  qualifica- 
tion :  "  I  will  hazard  the  assertion  that  no  man  ever 
did,  or  ever  will,  become  truly  eloquent  without  being 
a  constant  reader  of  the  Bible,  and  an  admirer  of  the 
purity  and  sublimity  of  its  language."  It  was  not. 
however,  with  either  of  these  eminent  men  a  mere 
professional  exercise.  It  was  one  of  the  most  potent 
agencies  in  moulding  them  to  that  robust  intellectual 
and  moral  structure  by  which  they  were  distinguished. 


53 

A  profound  veneration  for  the  Deity,  blended  with  a 
cordial  and  generous  recognition  of  Christianity,  per- 
vades Mr.  Webster's  writings  beyond  those  of  almost 
any  contemporaneous  statesman.  It  is  not  a  meagre 
and  reluctant  acknowledgment  of  the  scheme  of  natu- 
ral religion.  He  well  knew  that  this  was  no  sufficient 
remed}^  for  the  evils  of  the  fall.  He  regarded  man  as 
a  lost  sinner,  in  need  of  a  Saviour  ;  and  no  system  of 
faith  could  satisfy  him,  that  did  not  provide  a  Saviour. 
It  is  the  Gospel  of  Christ  which  so  often  reveals  itself 
in  his  speeches  and  correspondence,  as  the  theme  of 
emphatic  allusion  or  of  eloquent  eulogy.  It  is  evan- 
gelical Christianity,  as  supplying  at  once  the  only  solid 
foundation  for  man  to  rest  his  immortal  hopes  upon, 
and  the  only  sure  guarantee  of  national  freedom  and 
happiness. 

This  point  is  of  too  much  importance  to  be  dismissed 
without  exhibiting  Mr.  Webster's  method  of  dealing 
with  revealed  religion.  The  following  paragraphs  are 
taken  (with  some  abridgment)  from  one  of  his  legal 
arguments;  and  the  tone  of  them,  as  indeed  the  tone  of 
the  whole  speech,  is  such  as  must  carry  conviction  to 
the  mind,  that  it  is  no  less  the  man  than  the  advocate 
who  is  speaking : 

"  The  ground  taken  is,  that  religion  is  not  necessary 
to  morality ;  that  benevolence  may  be  insured  by  habit, 
and  that  all  the  virtues  may  nourish  and  be  safely  left 
to  the  chance  of  flourishing,  without  touching  the  wa- 
ters of  the  living  spring  of  religious  responsibility. 
With  him  who  thinks  thus,  what  can  be  the  value  of 


54 

the  Christian  revelation  ?  So  the  Christian  world  has 
not  thought,  for  with  that  Christian  world,  throughout 
its  broadest  extent,  it  has  been  and  is  held  as  a  funda- 
mental truth,  that  religion  is  the  only  solid  basis  of 
morals,  and  that  moral  instruction,  not  resting  on  this 
basis,  is  only  a  building  upon  sand."  "  When  little 
children  were  brought  into  the  presence  of  the  Son  of 
God,  his  disciples  proposed  to  send  them  away ;  but  he 
said,  '  Suffer  little  children  to  come  unto  me' — unto 
me;  he  did  not  send  them  first  for  lessons  in  morals 
to  the  schools  of  the  Pharisees  or  to  the  unbelieving 
Sadducees,  nor  to  read  the  precepts  and  lessons  phy- 
lacterled  on  the  garments  of  the  Jewish  priesthood ;  he 
said  nothing  of  different  creeds  or  clashing  doctrines  ; 
but  he  opened  at  once  to  the  youthful  mind  the  ever- 
lasting fountain  of  living  waters,  the  only  source  of 
immortal  truths;  'Suffer  little  children  to  come  unto 
me.'  And  that  injunction  is  of  perpetual  obligation. 
It  addresses  itself  to-day  with  the  same  earnestness 
and  the  same  authority  which  attended  its  first  utter- 
ance to  the  Christian  world.  It  is  of  force  everywhere 
and  at  all  times.  It  extends  to  the  ends  of  the  earth, 
it  will  reach  to  the  end  of  time,  always  and  every- 
where sounding  in  the  ears  of  men  with  an  emphasis 
which  no  repetition  can  weaken,  and  with  an  autho- 
rity which  nothing  can  supersede — '  Safer  little  chil- 
dren to  come  unto  me.' 

"And  not  only  my  heart  and  my  judgment,  my  be- 
lief and  my  conscience,  instruct  me  that  this  great  pre- 
cept should  be  obeyed,  but  the  idea  is  so  sacred,  the 


55 

solemn  thoughts  connected  with  it  so  crowd  upon  me, 
it  is  so  utterly  at  variance  with  this  system  of  philoso- 
phical morality  which  we  have  heard  advocated,  that 
I  stand  and  speak  here  in  fear  of  being  influenced  by 
my  feelings  to  exceed  the  proper  line  of  my  profes- 
sional duty."* 

In  keeping  with  this  fine  passage,  is  that  impressive 
announcement  to  the  Court,  of  Mr.  Mason's  death,  al- 
ready cited,  in  the  coarse  of  which  he  quotes  with  ap- 
probation an  account  of  the  religious  exercises  of  the 
deceased  jurist,  such  as  is  rarely  heard  in  our  halls  of 
Justice.  "  He  was  fully  aware  that  his  end  was  near  : 
and  in  answer  to  the  question,  i  Can  you  now  rest 
with  firm  faith  upon  the  merits  of  your  Divine  Re- 
deemer ?'  He  said,  i  I  trust  I  do  :  upon  what  else  can 
I  rest  ?' — At  another  time,  in  reply  to  a  similar  ques- 
tion, he  said,  *  Of  course,  I  have  no  other  ground  of 
hope.' "  If  I  mistake  not,  there  is  something  remarka- 
ble in  this.  It  is  not  in  the  usual  style  of  these  an- 
nouncements. There  is  no  censoriousness  in  saying 
that  very  few  of  the  men  who  stand  in  the  front  rank 
of  the  Profession,  would  have  ventured  upon  it.  But 
Mr.  Webster  could  do  it  without  scruple  or  embarrass- 
ment. It  was  as  natural  for  him  to  do  it,  as  it  would 
have  been  for  most  of  his  associates  to  confine  them- 
selves to  the  more  cautious  formularies,  which  custom 
has  prescribed  as  the  official  costume  of  Christianity, 
when  she  enters  the  Forum  or  the  Senate.  It  was 
nothing  for  Mm  to  speak  of  a  ''Redeemer,"  and  of 

*  Argument  in  the  Girard  Will  Case. 


56 

salvation  through  his  blood.  It  was  nothing  for  him 
to  stand  up  in  the  presence  of  the  Massachusetts  Bar. 
and  narrate  to  them  how  one,  at  whose  feet  they 
would,  any  of  them,  have  been  willing  to  sit,  and  at 
whose  feet  many  of  them  had  sat,  as  learners,  utterly 
renounced,  when  he  came  to  die,  all  dependence  upon 
the  virtues  which  adorned  his  character,  and  trusted 
for  pardon  only  to  the  merits  of  Christ.  The  religion 
which  centres  in  the  Cross,  had  not  only  formed  the 
groundwork  of  his  Puritan  training,  but  was,  as  his 
brethren  well  knew,  one  of  his  favourite  and  familiar 
studies  through  life.  Its  sublime  doctrines  opened  to 
him  a  field  in  which  his  majestic  powers  loved  to  ex- 
patiate. Its  consolations  met  the  moral  necessities  of 
his  nature.  It  was  congenial  to  the  grandeur  of  his 
imagination,  which  it  nerved  for  its  loftiest  flights.  It 
was  in  sympathy  with  the  tenderness  of  his  heart.  A 
rigid,  or  even  a  tolerant,  casuist  might  not  find  its  foot- 
prints just  where  he  required  them.  Some  important 
indications  of  its  presence,  it  must  be  conceded,  were 
not  there  as  they  ought  to  have  been.  He  had  not 
escaped — what  public  man  does  escape  ? — the  moth 
and  the  rust  with  which  a  political  life  eats  in  upon 
religious  principle  and  religious  habits. *  But  it  does 
not  admit  of  argument  as  to  where  his  convictions 

*  There  are  exceptions.  A  very  signal  one  in  our  own  annals 
was  once  characterized  by  Mr.  Webster  himself,  in  terras  so  beauti- 
ful that  I  cannot  forbear  copying  the  sentence  : — "  When  the  spot- 
less ermine  of  the  judicial  robe  fell  on  John  Jay,  it  touched  nothing 
not  as  spotless  as  itself." 


57 

were,  where  his  desires  were,  where  his  endeavours 
were.  Looking  at  him  as  a  whole,  it  was  apparent 
that  he  must  have  grown  up  in  a  healthful  moral  at- 
mosphere— an  atmosphere  as  fresh  and  bracing  for  his 
mental  and  moral  nature,  as  the  clear  air  and  Alpine 
scenery  of  New  Hampshire  had  been  for  his  physical 
man.  Daniel  Webster  never  could  have  been  what 
he  was,  nor  anything  approximating  to  what  he  was — 
still  less  could  he  have  acquired  his  acknowledged  as- 
cendency over  the  minds  of  his  countrymen — had  he 
been  an  infidel  or  even  an  indifferentist  in  religion. 
Those  who  would  discover  the  secret  of  his  strength — 
at  least  one  secret  of  his  strength — will  find  it  in  his 
systematic,  thorough,  and  affectionate  study  of  the 
Scriptures.  How  it  produced  its  effects  upon  his  in- 
tellectual powers,  his  temper  and  disposition,  his  juris- 
prudence, his  statesmanship,  and  the  whole  tone  and 
cast  of  his  public  labours,  not  to  speak  of  his  faultless 
style,  it  might  not,  perhaps,  be  difficult  to  show  if  the 
time  wTould  permit.  But  it  must  suffice  to  observe, 
on  one  single  point,  that  there  is  an  obvious  logical 
connexion  between  that  habit  of  mind  which  fitted 
him  to  grapple  with  the  most  complex  questions,  and 
to  take  the  most  comprehensive  views  of  every  subject, 
and  those  profound  meditations  on  the  moral  govern- 
ment of  Jehovah,  and  the  relations  and  destiny  of  the 
soul,  with  which  he  was  so  often  occupied.  Those 
who  value  our  Constitution  and  who  desire  the  perpe- 
tuity of  the  Union,  have  great  reason  to  bless  God 
that  Daniel  Webster  loved  and  studied  the  Bible.  And 
it  is  not  the  least  of  the  glories  which  cluster  around 


58 

his  character,  that  whether  before  the  Bar  of  Massa- 
chusetts, or  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States, 
whether  in  the  august  presence  of  the  Senate,  or  in  the 
midst  of  an  excited  popular  assemblage,  he  was  never 
ashamed  to  avow  his  belief  in  the  Gospel  of  Christ. 

Here  is  one  of  the  great  lessons  to  be  derived  from 
his  life — the  greatest,  indeed,  of  all.  He  is  but  a 
careless  observer  of  society,  who  has  not  detected  the 
encroachments  of  infidelity  among  the  educated  young 
men  of  the  country  within  the  last  few  years.  It 
comes  in  a  captivating  form.  The  ribaldry  of  Paine 
and  Voltaire  would  excite  disgust.  The  metaphysi- 
cal pyrrhonism  of  Hume  would  be  too  abstruse.  Three 
other  schemes  are  invented  better  adapted  to  the 
times.  One  is  the  theory  of  progressive  development, 
which  has  been  born  and  baptized  within  the  Church. 
The  second  is  a  subtle  and  specious  rationalism,  which 
has  been  transplanted  from  Germany.  And  the  third 
is  a  gorgeous  Pantheism  from  the  same  hot-bed  of 
error.  These  systems  all  breathe  a  complaisant  lan- 
guage towards  Christianity,  while  each  is  in  its  own 
way  sapping  its  foundations.  Without  undertaking 
to  apportion  to  each  its  specific  agency  in  producing 
the  result,  the  fact  is  indisputable,  that  many  of  the 
rising  authors  and  professional  men  of  the  country 
are  tinctured  with  a  supercilious  scepticism.  Inflated 
by  a  spurious  philosophy — "  philosophy  falsely  so 
called" — they  have  come  to  regard  Christianity  as  a 
sort  of  obsolete  system,  which  has  served  its  purpose, 
and  must  now  be  laid  upon  the  shelf.  It  may  still 
enlist  the  suffrages  of  the  common  people,  but  educated 


59 

men  demand  a  system  less  humiliating  in  its  personal 
requisitions,  and  more  in  keeping  Avith  the  general 
progress  of  the  world  ! 

Now  is  it  not  a  pleasant  thing  to  be  able  to  send 
these  Solons  to  a  man  like  Daniel  Webster  ?  Scio- 
lists as  they  often  are  in  literature,  and  always  in 
sacred  learning,  let  them  sit  down  to  the  perusal  of 
his  works,  and  brand  with  puerility  or  fanaticism 
those  noble  passages  scattered  throughout  every  vo- 
lume, in  which  he  bows  before  the  majesty  of  a  per- 
sonal and  holy  God,  or  extols  the  evangelical  faith  as 
the  only  hope  of  a  lost  world.  They  dare  not  do 
this,  even  though  they  refuse  to  follow  in  his  steps. 
Pride  or  prejudice  may  impair  the  just  influence  of 
his  example  upon  them,  but  it  will  not  be  lost  upon 
others  who  have  not  yet  plunged  into  the  abyss  of 
Atheism.  Nor  does  Webster  stand  alone.  It  is  aus- 
picious for  the  country,  and  honourable  to  their 
memories,  that  our  three  leading  statesmen  who  have 
lately  gone  down  to  the  tomb,  were  all  arrayed  on 
the  side  of  Christianity.  A  single  testimony  from 
one  of  them,  whose  oratory  rang  for  forty  years  through 
the  country  like  the  notes  of  a  silver  trumpet,  is  all 
it  may  be  requisite  to  cite.  "  Man's  inability,"  said 
Mr.  Clay,*  shortly  before  his  death,  "  to  secure  by  his 
own  merits  the  approbation  of  God,  I  feel  to  be  true. 
I  trust  in  the  atonement  of  the  Saviour  of  men,  as 
the  ground  of  my  acceptance,  and  my  hope  of  salva- 
tion.    My  faith  is  feeble,  but  I  hope  in  his  mercy  and 

*  To  Mr.  Venable. 


60 

trust  in  his  promises."'  There  is  a  power  in  utterances 
like  these  which  must  be  felt.  Christianity,  it  is  true, 
stands  in  no  need  of  human  props.  Its  buttresses  are 
strong  enough  to  defy — as  for  eighteen  hundred  years 
they  have  defied — the  assaults  of  malice  and  envy,  of 
unsanctified  learning  and  audacious  ignorance,  of 
kingcraft  and  priestcraft,  and  whatever  other  weapons 
earth  or  hell  may  forge  against  her.  But  it  may  help 
to  arm  the  ingenuous  youth  of  our  country  against 
the  seductions  of  unbelief,  to  remember  that  such 
men  as  Henry  Clay  and  Daniel  Webster — not  to  cite 
a  cloud  of  other  witnesses  from  the  brightest  pages  in 
our  national  annals, — gave  their  deliberate  testimony 
through  life  to  the  Divine  authority  of  the  Christian 
religion,  and  at  death  committed  their  souls  to  Jesus 
Christ  as  their  Redeemer. 

Various  conflicting  statements  have  been  published 
respecting  the  closing  scenes  of  Mr.  AVebster's  life. 
From  some  of  these  it  might  be  supposed  that  his 
mind  was  occupied  with  politics  almost  to  the  end.  I 
am  happy  to  have  it  in  my  power  to  correct  these 
impressions.  What  I  am  about  to  state  rests  on  the 
very  best  authority. 

Mr.  Webster,  then,  for  at  least  two  weeks  before 
his  death,  might  almost  be  said  to  have  made  no 
allusion  to  politics  whatever.  He  neither  conversed 
on  the  subject,  nor  gave  the  slightest  indication  that 
his  thoughts  were  directed  to  it.  On  the  contrary, 
his  whole  mind  and  his  whole  time  were  given  "  to 
his  affections  and  his  duties," — to  his  domestic  and 
social    sympathies,    and    his   preparation   for   death. 


Gl 

Beyond  the  circle  of  his  family  unci  friends,  his 
thoughts  were  not  of  earth,  but  of  heaven.  Politics 
and  every  other  temporal  interest  were  banished, 
and  his  whole  concern  was  with  the  things  of  eter- 
nity. During  this  period  he  referred  to  a  purpose  he 
had  long  entertained,  of  preparing  a  work  on  the 
Evidences  of  Christianity ;  and  after  expressing  the 
conviction  that  he  ought  to  leave  behind  him  some 
testimony  of  this  kind,  he  set  about  writing  a  state- 
ment of  his  faith  in  the  Christian  religion,  with  the 
grounds  and  reasons  of  the  same.  This  paper,  when 
finished,  was  read  over  with  great  care,  and  various 
alterations  and  interlineations  made  by  him — a  confi- 
dential friend  acting  as  his  amanuensis.  He  then 
placed  it  in  the  breast-pocket  of  his  dressing-gown  for 
convenient  reference,  and  two  or  three  days  before 
his  death,  he  drew  it  forth,  and  handed  it  to  his 
friend,  saying,  "  Here  is  this  paper ;  I  believe  it  is 
now  as  perfect  as  I  can  make  it."'  This  interesting 
and  important  document,  in  which  the  argument  for 
Christianity  is  said  to  be  presented  Avith  singular 
force,  will  in  due  time  be  published.  Such  were  the 
occupations  which  engrossed  Mr.  Webster's  mind  in 
the  prospect  of  death. 

"  A  setting  sun 

Should  leave  a  track  of  glory  in  the  skies." 

There  was  a  bright  and  softened  ray  shooting  up- 
ward from  that  shrouded  chamber  at  Marshfield. 
where  our  great  statesman  lay  expiring.  It  was  his 
humble,  steadfast  confession  of  Jesus  Christ. 


62 

The  following  particulars  given  by  Dr.  Jeffries, 
in  a  letter  to  the  Rev.  Dr.  Butler,  cannot  fail  to  excite 
the  deepest  interest. 

"On  leaving  Mr.  Webster  for  the  night,  at  llh  o'clock,  on  Satur- 
day, October  16th,  1852,  I  asked  him  if  I  should  repeat  to  him  a 
hymn  at  parting,  to  which  he  gave  a  ready  assent,  when  I  repeated 
the  hymn  which  begins  : 

"  •  There  is  a  fountain  filled  with  blood, 
Drawn  from  Inimanuel's  veins.' 

"  He  gave  very  serious  attention  to  the  recital,  and  at  the  close 
said,  'Allien,  amen — even  so  come,  Lord  Jesus.'  This  was  uttered 
with  great  solemnity.  He  afterwards  asked  me  if  I  remembered 
the  verse  in  one  of  Watts's  hymns  on  the  thought  of  dying  at  the 
foot  of  the  Cross,  and  repeated  these  lines  with  remarkable  energy 
and  feeling : 

"  '  Should  worlds  conspire  to  drive  me  hence, 
Moveless  and  firm  this  heart  should  lie, 
Resolved  (for  that's  my  last  defence), 
If  I  must  perish — here  to  die.' 

"  He  repeated  the  text,  '  Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and 
thou  shalt  be  saved/  and  then  what  he  had  given  to  be  inscribed 
upon  his  tombstone,  which  was  as  follows : 

"  'Lord,  I  believe,  help  thou  mine  unbelief.' 

"  'Philosophical  argument,  especially  that  drawn  from  the  vastness  of 
the  universe,  in  comparison  with  the  apparent  insignificance  of  this  globe, 
has  sometimes  shaken  my  reason  for  the  faith  that  is  in  me ;  but  my  heart 
has  always  assured  and  reassured  me,  that  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  must 
be  a  divine  reality.' 

"'The  Sermon   on   the  Mount  cannot  be  a  merely  human  production. 

This  belief  enters  into  the  very  depth  of  my  conscience. 

"  '  The  whole  history  of  man  proves  it.' 

"  '  Daniel  Webster.'  " 

On  the  evening  before  his  death,  he  prayed  in  his 
usual  voice,  strong,  full,  and  clear,  and  ended  thus : 


63 


"  Heavenly  Father,  forgive  my  sins,  and  receive  me 
to  thyself  through  Jesus  Christ."  He  also  exclaimed. 
"I  shall  be  to-night  in  life,  and  joy,  and  blessedness/' 
Later  in  the  night  a  faintness  occurred,  which  led  him 
to  think  that  death  was  at  hand.  While  in  this  con- 
dition, some  expressions  fell  from  him,  indicating  the 
hope  that  his  mind  would  remain  to  him  completely 
to  the  last.  He  spoke  of  the  difficulty  of  the  process  of 
dying,  when  Dr.  Jeffries  repeated  the  verse,  "  Though 
I  walk  through  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death,  I 
will  fear  no  evil,  for  Thou  art  with  me  :  thy  rod  and 
thy  staff,  they  comfort  me."  He  said  immediately, 
"The  fact— the  fact,  That  is  what  I  want.  Thy 
rod — thy  rod:  thy  staff- — thy  staff."  His  last  words 
were,  "  I  still  live  !" 

These  gleams  of  light  which  irradiated  the 
chamber  of  death,  now  shed  their  lustre  upon  his 
secluded  tomb.  This  tomb  will  have  an  interest  for 
his  countrymen  and  for  intelligent  strangers,  inferior 
to  that  of  no  man  of  his  generation. 

"  Such  graves  as  his  are  pilgrim-shrines, 
Shrines  to  no  code  or  creed  confined — 
The  Delphian  vales,  the  Palestines, 
The  Meccas  of  the  mind." 

But  pilgrims  need  not  journey  to  Marshfield.  His 
memorials  are  all  over  the  land.  Our  farms  and  our 
factories — our  ships  and  our  railways — our  school- 
houses  and  our  churches — our  courts  and  our  legisla- 
tures— our  domestic  harmony  and  our  honourable 
position  among  the  nations — our  matchless  Constitu- 


64 

tion,  stronger  than   ever  against   the   paroxysms  of 
misguided  patriotism  or  malevolent  faction,  and  our 
glorious  Union,  firmer  than  ever  in  the  affections  of 
the  people — these  are  his  memorials.     His  character 
and  achievements  have  become  a  part  of  our  national 
renown.     And   until  the  country  lacks  a  historian, 
Daniel  Webster  cannot  want  a  biographer.     To  his 
country,  indeed,  (if  we  may  embalm  his  name  in  one 
of  his  own  beautiful  tributes  to  departed  greatness — 
the  prophetic  paraphrase  of  his  dying  words)  "  lie  yd 
Jives,  and  lives  for  ever.     He  lives  in  all  that  perpe- 
tuates the  remembrance  of  men  on  earth ;    in   the 
recorded  proofs  of  his  own  great  actions,  in  the  off- 
spring of  his  intellect,  in  the  deep-engraved  lines  of 
public  gratitude,  and  in  the   respect  and  homage  of 
mankind.     He  lives  in  his  example ;    and   he  lives 
emphatically,  and  will  live  in  the  influence  which  his 
life  and  efforts,  his  principles  and  opinions,  now  ex- 
ercise, and  will  continue  to  exercise,  on  the  affairs  of 
men,  not  only  in  their  own  country,  but  throughout  the 
civilized  world.     A  superior  and  commanding  human 
intellect,  a  truly  great  man,  when  Heaven  vouchsafes 
so  rare   a  gift,  is  not  a   temporary   flame,   burning 
brightly  for  awhile,  and  then  giving  place  to  returning 
darkness.     It  is  rather  a  spark  of  fervent  heat,  as 
well  as  radiant  light,  with    power  to  enkindle  the 
common  mass  of  human  mind ;  so  that  when  it  glim- 
mers in  its  own  decay,  and  finally  goes  out  in  death, 
no  night  follows,  but  it  leaves  the  world  all  light,  all 
on  fire,  from  the  potent  contact  of  its  own  spirit." 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS-URBANA 
B.W378BO  C002 

A  DISCOURSE  ON  THE  LIFE  AND  CHARACTER  OF 


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